Of Shapeshifters and Violets
by Sonic the Shapeshifter
Summary: Tired of Sonic fanfictions with out-of-character characters? Want to read a fanfic written like an actual book? Want a story that has adventure, drama, good characterization and a lot of fun along the way? Then this is the story for you! So check it out!
1. Etherwurld

**Prologue**

A long time ago, when the world was still new, it was said that six deities ruled over the land in harmony.

Each deity ruled over his or her own element and worked together to make the world a perfect place.

The mighty waters of the ocean softly caressed the barren earth of what would come to be called Mobius, enriching the soil and bringing plantlife forth on the planet. At times, a great fire would destroy this plant life, aided by the air—but it was not an action meant in malice. It was simply to keep the earth from being taxed too much by the flora, so that enough nutrients would be left in the soil for future generations of life. Eventually many small beings appeared, first in the water, and then moving onto land. These creatures grew and adapted to their different environments, eventually evolving into two separate but equal races: the human race, and the animal race. Each breed of the animal race had two forms; quadruped and biped. The quadrupeds had smaller brains with limited capacity to learn; the bipeds were equal in brain capacity to humans, but were shorter in stature—and much more animal like in their appearance. Despite their differences, the two intelligent races also lived in harmony under the rule of the first four elements.

Of course, two more elements presided over the first four—those of light and darkness. After all, the world was first born in darkness, the eldest of the elements, but with the affection and nurturing of light, the world and its elements came to life. Light and Darkness also worked together in harmony, creating the division of day and night throughout the course of the year to give each greater element a chance to watch over and be proud of the world they together had created.

Now, the stories do not say where exactly it came from. Some think that it came about because peace cannot be held for so long between creatures of so many different types, so many conflicting elements. Some believe that it was a trick of the darkness, believing that the dark is inherently evil and the light inherently good, and that no true peace can ever exist between them. Whatever the reason, a short time after the creatures evolved on the earth, a seventh element was born.

And then there was Chaos.

**Chapter One: Etherwurld**

Etherwurld High School had stood at the center of the quaint Town for decades. Indeed, it seemed as though the Town had grown up around the school, as though it was a living being, and the school functioned as its heart. Though autumn had only just begun to blow its cold winds, the grass was already brown and crinkly around the imposing building, as though it felt as dead as the spirits haunting the dilapidated old house a few streets to the east of the school.

The Town (Etherwurld Town, named after its founder, Rothgaurd Etherwurld) was rather small, all things considered—at least when compared to the massive cities sprawling the rest of the globe. Every person in the town grew up in it, and few if any ever decided to leave; children grew up together as though they were cousins, though no one in the Town was actually related to each other. Sometimes a new complex of houses would be added; first to the North, and then to the East, and then continuing clockwise to make the Town a bit bigger in an ever increasing circle. Then fresh blood would be introduced into the Town, keeping it alive with new ideas and technology.

Newcomers generally were eyed with suspicion at first, but with time the Townspeople would adopt the strangers into the massive family that was Etherwurld.

One newcomer-turned-family-member was named Violet Williams, who had moved into Town at a young age with her parents, Jonathon and Evaline Williams. She had mousey brown hair that hung neatly around her shoulders and eyes of a clear liquid blue. Though she was concerned about being unattractive, as most girls her age (15) were, she was indeed a pretty girl, slender but with muscled arms that could lift a considerable amount of weight without too much effort. Her favorite color was purple, as her nickname proved, and she never left her home without her beloved necklace—a thin silver chain with an Egyptian Ankh totem dangling from it which stayed fastened around her neck despite her rigorous everyday routine. She thought of the necklace as an extension of herself, and felt it gave her luck.

She didn't feel very lucky as she stared at her returned test paper, at the end of the day in her Geography Class in Etherwurld High.

"Mr.D, you cannot be SERIOUS!" She screeched at the teacher after the rest of the students picked up their bags and dashed out of the room to catch their buses home.

The grizzled old man adjusted his spectacles and peered down at her over them, looking like a vulture with the way the glasses emphasized his hooked nose. "_I_ cannot be serious? I should be the one saying that to you, with the way you joked around in your test paper!"

Violet stared with horror at the frail paper she held in her hands. With the amount of red slashes and X's marked on it, it seemed as though it was bleeding from maliciously inflicted wounds.

"I can't fail this! I studied so hard on this test!" She protested, looking up from the paper to her teacher with unbelieving eyes.

"Well perhaps you should have studied harder." He replied, unconcerned.

Violet stared at him, open mouthed. "But…but…"

"What a ridiculous response—in fact, that was one of them on your test. 'What is the capital of Arkansas?' You wrote 'But.' There is no capital in the world with the name 'But.' It's ridiculous!" Aggravated now, Mr. Dredhawk launched into a long lecture at Violet about the importance of studying and having respect for the many countries and capitals around the world.

Violet tuned him out almost immediately, looking back at the large red 48 circled at the top of her paper with dread. Her parents would be very displeased with her…

A few hours later, she discovered that her parents' reaction was exactly what she'd anticipated. She stood silently as her parents banished her to her room for the weekend. She flopped on her bed and buried her face in her pillow with a frustrated groan. Halloween night, and she wouldn't even be allowed to watch a scary movie, much less hang out with her best friend, Carlee, for the night as she'd been planning.

_Speak of the Devil_, she thought to herself as she heard something tap urgently on her window. She looked up from her pillow to see Carlee grinning at her upside-down from a tree branch. This was not an uncommon occurrence. Carlee was the kind of person you could count on for a good time, whether it was chilling at the park or playing an extravagant prank on the school's crabbiest teachers and escaping punishment by a hair. She often showed up at Violet's house, so much that her parents joked that it was almost as though the 17-year-old lived there (before they gently prodded her out the door). Though Violet's room was on the second floor of the house, such details were of only minor importance to Carlee so long as the stout Oak tree stood just outside. Her golden russet hair hung down from her head as she hung upside down from the tree, her slender arms and long legs clasped around the tree branch effortlessly as she stared in at Violet with her brilliantly colored eyes. For you see, unlike most other children in town, Carlee's eyes held more than just one or two colors, but rather the entire spectrum; along the outer ridge of her iris, a ring of dark blue encircled a smaller ring of green, and in turn the green ring rimmed a yellow one, and the yellow one rimmed a thin red one (with a sliver of orange where the two rings touched), finally leading in to a purple-gray ring just around her pupil. No one quite understood why she had this strange anomaly, but everyone who got close enough to observe her eyes agreed that it was a beautiful and remarkable occurrence.

Violet didn't much care about Carlee's eyes at the moment, however. "Are you crazy?" She hissed, leaping up and shoving her bedside table across the floor from her bed and prying her window open. The table screeched as she pushed it over, making her wince.

"Violet, you better not be messing up your floors, do you hear me?" Her mother called from downstairs.

"Sorry, mom." Violet called back with a sigh.

"You already know the answer to your question." Carlee said coolly as she slipped into the room as silently as a cat. She brushed some bark bits off of her shirt and jeans, pulling a couple of brown-orange leaves out of her hair and adjusting the bandana tied around her head. She jerked a thumb toward Violet's bedroom door, nodding her head towards it in question as she asked, "Trouble in Paradise?"

Violet ignored Carlee's question, instead giving her friend a once-over. "Why are you dressed like that?" She asked in confusion.

It seemed as though Carlee had just traveled in time from the 70's. A rainbow bandana wound its way around her head, overtop of fluffy bangs that were swept to one side with a few stubborn hairs clinging to the other side. Her tie-dye shirt was equally colorful, with a giant peace sign on the front in multicolored gemstones. Her bellbottom jeans had patches sewn onto them and were ragged around the bottom as though they'd been heavily used, although Violet had never seen Carlee wear them before. Her eyes sparkled when she blinked, and Violet realized that the elder girl had sprinkled glitter on her eyelids.

"Have you forgotten what day it is, already, Vi?" Carlee asked with a smirk, her eyelids lowering halfway as she laughed inwardly at the look on her friend's face.

"Oh…" Violet blinked, then looked down mournfully at the floor. "I can't go." She muttered, walking over and flopping on her bed, hugging her pillow.

"Why not?" Carlee asked in surprise.

"I'm grounded all weekend. No TV, no computer, no nothin'. It's all 'cause Mr. Dredhawk gave me a bad grade on my geography test." Violet grumbled, frowning at the memory of her nonchalant teacher's face.

"I told ya you should've taken History," Carlee lightly chastised, "Stories are easy to remember. I've read a million books; history has a sensible plotline though, and it's way easier to remember events than the places in which they occurred. Besides, Mr. Fasil is an easy teacher. I know, I took his class last year. Nobody liked Mr. Dredhawk." Carlee was one grade level ahead of Violet; she was a Junior, and Violet was a Sophomore.

"My parents wanted me to take it. They thought it'd help me out with maps. Instead I'm just being quizzed on countries I'm never gonna visit." Violet groaned, "I wish I could've taken History instead. Now I'm stuck inside on Halloween when I should be out there partying with you and the others!"

Carlee didn't reply, looking around Violet's room. It was small and neat, painted a warm lavender color. A bookshelf stood in one corner, filled with alphabetically arranged books on the top shelf, videogames on the next shelf, dvd's on the next, and old videotapes on the last. A couple of posters adorned the walls; one had a mermaid holding a massive pearl which glowed in her hands and illuminated the water around it, and the other had another mermaid, this one playing with a dolphin in a decorous coral palace. A photo frame with a picture of Violet and Carlee together stood on the bedside table next to a fancy iron lamp that displayed the shadows of various sea creatures on the lampshade when lit up, and a small writing desk with a plain lamp on it stood on the opposite side of the room next to the closet. A half-filled wastebasket stood next to the desk.

Carlee walked over to the closet and opened it, beginning to rummage through the clothes hanging up there.

"Hey…what are you doing?" Violet asked, sitting up in her bed and watching her friend.

"Where's your costume?" Carlee asked, pulling out a giant woolen sweater that looked like a bear had thrown up on it, then shoving it back on the rack with a grimace.

"I'm grounded. I don't _need_ a costume." Violet replied, looking at Carlee with confusion.

"Nonsense." Carlee said, pulling out a Japanese silk bathrobe with flowers and long-bodied dragons embroidered into the fabric. "This'll be perfect!"

"Wait, what are you talking about, perfect? I'm not even allowed to leave the house!" Violet interjected, getting up and walking over to Carlee.

Carlee immediately twirled around violet, pushing the younger girl's arms through the sleeves of the coat and then stepping back to appraise her. "Well, the purple shirt kinda matches since it does have light and dark purple flower patterns in it, but the jeans aren't doing anything for you. Since I know you hate wearing skirts and dresses we can't do anything about that, though, so I guess we'll just have to deal with it. Your hair can be fixed up though!" She said cheerfully, digging into her jeans pocket suddenly.

"Now just hold on a minute—" Violet started, but Carlee cut her off with a joyous cry, pulling out a long pair of black chopsticks from her pocket.

"Do you have a hair band?" She asked Violet.

Violet blinked at Carlee, momentarily losing her train of thought. "How did you fit those in there?" She asked, looking at the chopsticks and then at Carlee's pocket.

"I have my ways." Carlee said, "Never mind about the hair band, I've got a rubber one which'll work just as well but it might hurt to get it out later so you'll have to be careful."

"Carlee—"

Carlee pulled Violet over to the bed and sat with her on it, pulling the girl's hair up into a bun.

"Ow!"

"Sorry, I'm not used to fooling around with other people's hair." Carlee apologized, sticking the chopsticks through the bun in an X formation and then pulling a mirror out of her other pocket to let Violet see. "You look mahvelous,dahling." She said, imitating the stuck up hairdresser from the town's shopping area.

"Carlee, I'm not going anywhere! I'm grounded!" Violet said, pushing away the mirror and looking her friend in the eyes.

"Pfft, well of course YOU aren't going anywhere. WE are." Carlee said with a grin, her eyes sparkling as she lowered her lids halfway over them, as though waiting patiently for her friend to understand something of great importance.

Violet widened her eyes. "I'll get in so much trouble if they find out I'm gone!"

"They won't."

"How do you know?"

" 'Cause I got _this_." Carlee pulled a massive tape recorder out of her pocket. She pressed a button on it and the sounds of flipping pages and pencil scribbling bounced around the room. Every few minutes the scribbling sounds paused and a sigh would sound, then more pages would turn.

"What in the world…" Violet started to ask.

"After about three hours the sounds will change to obnoxious snoring. If your parents come to check on you they'll hear the sounds of the perfect student, studying to ace her next test, and then getting a good night's rest. You might even get let off from being grounded, early, and get to go to the park with me tomorrow." Carlee said, leaning back against the bed frame and tossing the recorder to Violet.

Violet caught it and looked at Carlee, stunned. "You really thought of everything, didn't you?"

"Hmm, well, when I saw you walking all slouched and depressed up the steps to your house I knew something was up, so I went home and put together a few things real quick and here I am." Carlee smiled, then paused for a moment, putting a finger on her chin in thought. "I'm a bad influence on you, aren't I?" She asked. Before Violet could answer, she shrugged and said "Oh well. Put that thing on the floor in the middle of your room and let's get on out of here."

Carlee hopped up and climbed out of the window onto the branch. Violet looked at the tape recorder for a moment. It sighed.

"You comin'?" Carlee poked her head back in the window for a moment, rainbow eyes questioning.

Violet placed the tape recorder in the center of the room and clambered out of the window. If Carlee had a tail, it would have wagged.

_Author's Note: This is the revision of 'Of Shapeshifters and Violets,' a story written around 3 years ago by myself and my cowriter Violet. Right when I was about to upload chapter fifty two of the fic, someone hacked into my account and deleted the story, presumably after I had uploaded a trailer advertising the fic on you tube. If you wish to see the trailer, please go to you tube and type "Of Shapeshifters and Violets" in the search bar and my video trailer should be the first thing to pop up. It took a while, but I am now rewriting the fic from scratch as I no longer had chapters 1 through 31 on file unfortunately. With time and luck the entire story will be back on this site soon. Though you do not see any mention of Sonic and the others yet, you will see them soon. First Carlee and Violet have to get to Mobius._


	2. The Old Grimmsby Place

**Chapter Two: The Old Grimmsby Place**

"So just where are we going, anyway?" Violet asked once she and Carlee had gotten a safe distance from her house. The street wasn't paved, but instead cobbled as it had been for generations. People in Etherwurld felt very much in tune to their roots, or at least what roots they knew of. The exact origins of Etherwurld Town were unknown; it quite literally appeared on the map sometime six hundred years before, and stories were passed down through the generations with wild tales of creatures that were half-man, half-beast that used to roam the streets of Etherwurld as naturally as squirrels and rabbits did now. Generally these creatures appeared in fables that warned not to lie, cheat, and steal among other things. The only fable that did not have a common moral was one about a rotund man with a bushy orange mustache, who made a pact with a being of darkness and was cursed because of it. After being related so many times over the years, the story had changed, however, and although there was some mention of powerful stones being involved in the curse no one really knew what this particular story meant, much less what it was about. Parents warned their children not to go out alone at night, in the dark, with threats of 'the dark one' spiriting them away—leaving a locket in return.

"To the old Grimmsby place." Carlee replied, lowering her head slightly with a mischevious grin. Violet knew that look. It meant that the elder girl was as intent on her course of action as a bloodhound on the trail of a rabbit.

"The Grimmsby place?" Violet yelped, "You must be NUTS!"

"I'm not nuts." Carlee shot a slightly impatient glace at her friend before continuing on down the street, "You are what you eat and I'm allergic. Wait, isn't your favorite food chicken?"

"Very funny." Violet shot back, "Does that make you a pig?"

"I hate pork."

"You're so picky!"

"I have the simplest of tastes, Vi; I only want the best."

Violet groaned as Carlee snickered.

"Anyway we're only gonna be hanging out on the porch, it's not like we're going inside." Carlee said, slinging her arm around Violet's shoulders to comfort the other girl.

The old Grimmsby Manor had a reputation as grim as its name. It seemed like every time a family moved in there, they would disappear or have something horrible happen to them. A few years ago, one boy had gone in there and never came back out. The police were still searching for his remains. A few petitions had been raised to demolish the house, but every time people had finally gotten the funds and approval to destroy it the plans would fall apart for some reason, and by that time the protests against the house would fall silent once again, leaving the dilapidated house an eternal blemish on the face of the otherwise perfect little town. It had been abandoned for a long time now; it was a miracle it hadn't fallen down on its own already, as no one took care of it.

The two girls continued northward down the street (Violet lived on the Southern side of town), passing a few groups of children dressed as fairies, pirates, and other strange creatures on the hunt for candy before taking a right turn on the street just before the one that led to school. It was a pleasant night, only slightly chilly, but not enough to give them goosebumps. A few teenagers were actually walking around in shorts and tank tops as they patrolled the streets with their younger brothers and sisters, stuck with the unhappy chore of chaperoning. The houses Carlee and Violet passed on their way down the street were well taken care of, but as they continued eastward the houses seemed to get more and more downtrodden until they came to the epitome of ugliness, the Grimmsby Manor.

"Relax, wouldja, Vi?" Carlee muttered, annoyed, as Violet started shivering.

"It's cold out here."

Carlee rolled her eyes. "Come on, you silly mongoose." She grabbed Violet's arm and raced into the sloping yard of the Grimmsby Manor, which stood atop a small hill. The grass here was as dead as the grass in the schoolyard, but with the added repulsiveness of the sad estate of the house, its deadness was magnified.

A group of about ten people sat in a circle on the wide front porch of the house, huddled around a metal wastebasket. The contents of the wastebasket were on fire, but there was no threat of anyone being burned or of the house itself being burned, so long as no one was foolish enough as to knock it over. As Carlee and Violet walked up the granite steps to the porch the group turned their attentions to the two girls.

"Well, it's about time you two showed up." The leader of the mass of teenagers leaned back on the porch, the fire's light catching in his eyes and making them flash. The fire in his eyes well-reflected his name—Ash Brockilar. Ash had dark red hair, almost brown in coloration with fiery streaks that suited him well, as he was a typical teenage boy with a bit of a mean streak and an easily ignited temper. He had a high opinion of himself and paraded around the schoolyard like a peacock, with a posse of younger boys around him at all times. Many of the girls at the school found him attractive and often he would open his locker, only to be bombarded with love letters and valentines from secret admirers. Despite this, he had eyes for one girl only…

"Yo." Carlee said, unenthused. She smiled warmly at the rest of the teens around the fire, keeping her eyes off of Ash. "Let's get this party started!"

"We were just about to play truth or dare." Ash said, directing the statement at Carlee even though she was no longer looking at him, but rather intently into the flames of the burning garbage, "Since you got here last, you're up first."

"Um, I'm here too ya know?" Violet said, peeved at Ash for ignoring her presence.

Ash shot her an annoyed glance before turning his gaze back to Carlee.

"No problem." Carlee smirked, sitting on the deck and waving for Violet to join alongside her as the other teenagers shifted to make room for them. She sat directly across the fire from Ash now, which suited her fine.

"Since you're a girl, I'm pretty sure you'd choose truth anyway, so I'll just ask you a question right off the bat. Whaddya think of my costume?" Ash grinned, straightening up. He wore light brown slacks and a red shirt.

"What are you even supposed to BE?" Carlee asked, looking at him shrewdly.

"A match, of course." Ash leaned in towards the fire slightly with a cocky grin, "Is it getting hot in here?"

"A match, huh? You look more like a flaming h—" Violet started.

"Nobody asked you!" Ash interrupted, glaring daggers at her.

"Well first off it looks like a lame attempt at a costume. You could've at least worn a hat." Carlee replied, "And secondly I almost never choose 'Truth' so don't try to guess at my choices when you barely know me."

The other teens around the fire "oooh"ed at this. A couple muttered "He just got pwned." To each other quietly so that Ash wouldn't hear. He did.

"All right, then I challenge you to stay in the attic of this house all night!" Ash said angrily. He paused for a moment and a sly smile spread halfway across his face as he added, "You _could_ take one person with you, of course…"

"Not you." Carlee replied. The circle of teens giggled as Ash's face turned red.

"Then Violet goes with you!" He spluttered, trying to keep face.

"I didn't even choose!" Violet objected, frowning at Ash.

"What, afraid you're gonna get dirty from the dust, girly? Or maybe a ghost is gonna getcha?" Ash taunted.

"Never. Call. Me. Girly." Violet growled. She had spent most of her life trying to dig her way out of that stereotype; she worked hard to build muscles, where other girls' muscles were thin and weak; she fought her way out of wearing dresses or skirts, always wearing jeans no matter how 'tacky' her mother claimed she looked; she loved mechanics and carried a wrench no matter where she went in case she needed to do some impromptu engineering. Violet was the supreme opposite of 'girly.'

"Then go on in." Ash smirked. He knew he had won.

"I will!" Violet declared.

"Don't forget that it's haunted. Wouldn't want the shadowbeast to make you disappear." Ash teased maliciously.

"I'm sure it'd be scared away by your face before it ever got to us." Carlee said dryly, winking at Violet to give her confidence, "Come on, Vi."

Ash fumed as Carlee and Violet stood up and walked to the door. Carlee placed her hand on the knob and turned it. The wooden door slowly creaked open, revealing nothing but cold darkness within.

_Author's Notes: The original Of Shapeshifters and Violets was a lot less detailed than this, as many of my old readers/reviewers will remember. Since I have to start from scratch with only the most basic memories of the plot, I decided rather than try and make it as much like the original as possible, I'd make it more descriptive and change the dialogue slightly, in some cases adding dialogue where there was none before. Violet wrote the original first chapter, but so far I (Sonic the Shapeshifter) have been rewriting the chapters, so unless I specifically state that Violet wrote a chapter, it's all me so far. However, Violet is contemplating drawing the characters of the fic based on my descriptions thus far so we can update their looks! Once she completes the pics I'll be sure to post where you can find them on my userlookup and post a note about them here! See ya in the next chapter! _


	3. Into the Attic

**Chapter Three: Into The Attic**

_Man, how do I get myself into these things?_ Violet asked herself as she walked into the darkness after Carlee.

The elder girl paused after entering and kicked the door closed without looking back, the wooden door crashing shut with a shudder. "Wow, is it dark in here or what?" Carlee said to Vi, looking toward Violet in the darkness. There was enough light to make out objects by, but not enough to see them very well.

"We should have asked one of the people outside for a—"

"Flashlight?" Carlee offered Violet, finishing the other girl's sentence.

Violet flinched as the light flashed into her eyes. "IT BURNS!" She yelped, throwing her hands up in front of her eyes.

"My bad!" Carlee quickly swept the beam of light downward, handing Violet the flashlight and pulling a second one out of her pocket.

"Dude!" Violet stared at Carlee's pocket.

"What?" Carlee asked, confused.

"How do you fit all of this junk in there! First the chopsticks, now two massive flashlights too?" Violet blinked at Carlee, looking at her small jeans pocket, "How do you keep doing that?"

Carlee grinned teasingly. "Magic!" She said, turning and flicking her flashlight on as she walked down the entrance hallway.

"Carlee, you've gotta tell me!" Violet ran after Carlee, ignoring the creaking protests of the old wooden floorboards as she raced over them.

Carlee paused at the entrance to the next room, sweeping the light of the flashlight across the objects within: A couch covered with a white sheet to protect it from dust, some chairs covered with sheets as well, and a painting on the wall of an odd looking man. Carlee trained the beam on this picture for a moment, examining it. The painting was of the full figure of the man; he stood in the center as its focus. By no means was he thin. His body was almost egg-shaped, in fact, his belly protruding outward in a rather disgusting fashion. He wore a zipped red jacket with yellow cuffs and four square designs on the front; two squares on each side. White stripes spread out from these squares across the back (or so it seemed from the single view of the picture) to meet the squares on the other side. He also wore a clunky set of goggles which rested snugly atop his bald head, and dark blue glasses that hid his eyes. With a bulbous red nose and redder bushy mustache, the man could have been mistaken for a middle-aged Santa Clause but for one thing: his smile. As if the horrid background of a crumbling city with smog filled skies weren't enough, the sadistic smile creeping across his frowning visage told of the evil nature behind those hidden eyes.

Carlee internally quailed at the painting, cringing inside at the thought of a man like that ever existing…disturbed at the thought that anyone could be evil enough that their aura would bleed through the painting and into the hearts of all those who looked upon it.

"Carlee?" Violet asked, tapping her on the shoulder.

Carlee flinched at the touch, startled out of her thoughts. She turned briskly away from the room. "No stairs here, we'll have to try another room."

Violet raised an eyebrow at Carlee as the girl began walking into the room opposite of the one she'd just looked into. _Did I…frighten her?_ Violet peeped into the room, sweeping her flashlight around it quickly to see if she could find what Carlee had been staring at.

"Hey, I found the stairs. You comin', Vi?" Carlee called just as Violet shined the light over the painting.

"Yeah." Violet turned from the room and followed after Carlee. She decided that she probably hadn't startled Carlee at all; there was nothing scary in the room anyway. Just a couple covered chairs and a painting of some old fat guy. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right in this place…

The full moon shone through a window, illuminating the steps of the stairs as Carlee and Violet climbed upward. The stairs were the only part of the old house that seemed elegant. They were wide and had ornate banisters on each side, with a dark crimson carpet that rolled down them to the floor. The years had taken their toll, however; the once magnificent stairs were now completely coated with dust, and the carpet had faded from its original burgundy color to a washed out scarlet one. Carlee and Violet left footprints on every step, in the dust. What was unsettling was the fact that there were other pairs of footprints in the dust that didn't belong to Carlee or Violet, on the stairs ahead. Carlee decided not to point this out to Violet; it was her fault that they'd even gotten sent in here in the first place. Coming in here was her burden alone to bear, and she felt responsible for Violet's part in the dare.

_I don't even know why I taunt him as much as I do…_ She thought to herself as she continued up the stairs, _I know I should just ignore him but he's such a JERK_.

"Carlee?" Violet asked, from behind.

Carlee paused on the steps, looking back at Violet. "Yeah, Vi?" Carlee asked, hoping that Violet didn't notice the other footprints in the dust, footprints she didn't quite believe belonged to real people after seeing the painting in the room below.

"I think we should back out of the dare…" Violet said, rubbing her arms through the silk bathrobe and looking out of the window at the moon.

"What're you talkin' about?" Carlee asked, blinking at Violet, "We haven't even seen so much as a spider. We're fine."

"But Carlee," Violet said, looking up into the perplexed rainbow eyes of the girl standing a few steps above her, "don't you remember what happened to Kai?"

Painful memories flooded Carlee's mind, ones she'd repressed for three years: A boy, 17, serious natured and somewhat quiet, but with a good sense of humor, and an equally good heart. Strong and brave, he accepted any challenge thrown at him without flinching. Everyone respected him at the school—even the teachers. A guardian and a mediator, he would break up fights the moment he saw them start, and defend his friends without thinking twice. He preferred to wear darker clothes, black ones if possible, but he was by no means a Goth. It was simply his style, his nature. Even his eyes were dark as night. And yet even so, he was one of Carlee's most treasured friends. Carlee, who was loathe to wear dark colors and bright as a sunbeam in every way. Go figure.

One day, though, Kai had accepted a challenge he couldn't refuse…and no one had ever heard from him again.

"Yes…" Carlee said, sadness creeping into her voice as she looked despondently down at Violet, "I remember. He disappeared."

"In this house." Violet added, shivering slightly, "Three years ago, today."

Carlee jerked slightly as she realized Violet was right; it was three years to the date that Kai had gone missing, after striding boldly into this same house on a dare.

"We should leave." Violet started to turn when Carlee grabbed her shoulder.

"Wait!"

Violet looked back up into Carlee's eyes, which seemed to pulse with color. "Nobody knows why Kai disappeared or where to," Carlee said, staring soulfully into Violet's eyes, "But we're here now and we're together. No matter what comes at us, we'll be able to tackle it head-on and win. We're a team! Always have been, always will be! We can't let the past hold us back. Instead we should take it as a warning and press on to the future."

Violet's eyes glistened at the speech. Carlee always seemed to know what to say, and she said it with such passion that it was easy to see why people would follow her into so many ridiculous situations—like the one they were in now.

"Are ya with me, Vi?" Carlee asked.

Violet nodded.

"All right then, let's go." Carlee and Violet continued up the stairs to the next landing, where they continued to search for another small flight of stairs that would lead to the attic. It was a simple two story house, so they knew they had to be close to finding it.

It would be faster if they split up, but Carlee wasn't about to suggest it. Violet already wanted to leave, and to be honest Carlee wanted to as well, despite the uplifting words she'd just uttered to Violet. The longer she stayed in the house the more uncomfortable she felt. She'd be happy when the night was over, or when Ash felt bored enough to send someone in to fetch her and Violet. She was confident that Ash wouldn't really leave them in the attic all night. Nobody could be that mean._ Then again…_ She thought as her mind drifted back to the man in the portrait. She shook her head, her hair swinging from side to side roughly. _I'm being stupid. The Mustached Man is a foolish old legend with no basis in fact whatsoever. Mr. Fasil only taught us those old fairy tales to tell us about our town's history. Even he said it was just a story. _

She and Violet walked into the third room in the cramped hall, pushing open the door to see yet another room full of blanketed couches and tables. Luckily, there were no creepy paintings in this one. Another window cast some light into the room, but not much thanks to the grime coating the glass. Unlike the other rooms on the second floor, this one had a second door in it on the side.

"That must be the door to the attic." Carlee said to Violet over her shoulder, striding over to it and placing her hand on the knob.

Violet put her hand on Carlee's shoulder one more time, and the elder girl looked back at her. "Are you sure that we should do this?"

"Positive." Carlee said, giving Violet a shaky smile, "Ash wouldn't make us stay in here all night anyway. Heck, I don't give the group more than two hours before they come up to get us. No worries."

Violet nodded, giving Carlee a thin-lipped smile. Carlee turned back to the door and opened it to see a final flight of stairs up to the attic door. Carlee started to go up when she felt a hand on her shoulder again.

"Violet, I'm telling you, everything is gonna be—" Carlee looked back to see a six foot tall seaweed monster behind her, with glowing red eyes and a fin protruding from its head. It had fins for ears as well, along with a few finned ridges along each of its arms. Its webbed fingers tightened around Carlee's shoulders, a few short blunt claws sticking out from each of the tips. It had one arm wrapped tightly around Violet, covering her mouth with one hand. The younger girl's eyes were wide as she hung nearly a foot off the floor in the air.

"HIIIYA!" Carlee spun and slammed her arm into the arm of the monster, smacking it off of her shoulder. Then she leapt at it with the full force of her body, slamming into its chest and knocking it over onto the floor. A muffled "oof!" came from the vicinity of the monster's mouth, and it grappled at Carlee, gripping her around the arm. Violet slipped out of its grasp as it fell, and she quickly rolled away out of its reach. Carlee began barking and roaring at the monster as she pounded on it with her free arm and hand, kneeing it in the stomach as she tried to break free of its grasp and trying to put it off guard with the inhuman noises which she'd been able to produce throughout her entire life. The monster grunted with pain at the blows but quickly started overpowering her, catching her other arm as it pulled itself upright and starting to pin her below it on the ground. Right when it almost had her pinned, Violet slammed into its side and knocked it across the floor, shouting "RUN!" at Carlee.

The two girls scrambled up the stairs toward the attic, bumping into each in the dark stairway and nearly tripping over each other. They got stuck outside the attic door for a moment, having to fumble around in the dark for the knob as they had both dropped their flashlights in the pandemonium moments before. After what seemed like an interminable amount of time they got it open and spilled out onto the floor of the attic. Immediately Carlee twirled around and slammed the door shut and Violet yanked the white sheet off of a chair, jamming it at an angle beneath the knob so that the monster wouldn't be able to force its way in.

"What the HECK was that?" Violet yelped at Carlee, scrambling over backwards on the floor.

"That," Carlee said, sitting down next to Violet, "was a man in a ridiculous costume."

"A _costume?_" Violet exclaimed, looking at Carlee incredulously, "Wait—how do you know it was a guy in there?"

"Come on, Vi, how many girls do we know at the school who are six feet tall?" Carlee replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes, "And besides that, how many girls do we know at the school who would have the strength to pin me down so easily?"

"Good point." Violet responded weakly, thinking of the meek girls at the school.

"I don't want to take a chance of him hurting either of us though, so I think we're stuck here for a while." Carlee said, relaxing slightly as the soft glow of the moon poured over her body and slightly illuminated the attic up to the door. Suddenly a shadow swept across the field of light. Carlee and Violet simultaneously jerked their heads toward the window, turning around with a shared gasp.

"A-a-and w-w-what do you c-call th-that?" Violet stuttered, staring at the source of the shadow.

Carlee screamed.

_Yikes! I read a recent review and wanted to put off some of your fears! Number one, Carlee is NOT going to get raped by Ash! This fanfic is rated K for Kidz! I can't and wouldn't do that! I can't quite say anything else without revealing too much about the fourth chapter, but NO! NOBODY'S DYING OR GETTING RAPED! HOLY CRAP! _

_On a lighter note, about Ash's terrible costume…that's entirely the point xD It's a non-costume, Ash was too macho to actually get dressed up for Halloween, so he decided to just wear the shirt and beige pants and claim that it was actually a costume. Boo, Ash, boooooo xD (He's a failure D: )Even Violet got more dressed up than that and she wasn't even planning to dress up xD And Carlee always gets way in the spirit of things, so of course she was totally decked out (Trendsetter, woot!)_

_Lastly, Reed Raze Gale pointed out a BIG mistake in the first chapter. Apparently Fanfiction Dot Net refuses to allow first name dot last names without spaces, so the names of the teachers (Mr. Fasil and Mr. Dreadhawk) were deleted when I uploaded it to the site *facepalm* I put in a space between Mr. and the names of each teacher and corrected the mistake. If you ever see something like that in another chapter, please point it out in a private message to me so I can fix it. Because I had already gone over the chapter for spelling and grammatical errors before uploading it, I didn't check chapter one after uploading, and that was a big mistake that could've gone uncorrected for a looong time! Special thanks again to Reed Raze Gale!_


	4. A Plan Gone Awry

**Chapter Four: A Plan Gone Awry**

A terrified scream ripped through the night, making the teens around the fire jump and gasp with fear.

"That was Carlee!" One girl exclaimed, staring at the closed door of the house with her eyes wide open.

"But she never screams!" The girl beside her replied, unable to believe it herself.

"We have to help her!" A boy on the opposite side of the fire boldly proclaimed, standing up bravely.

"No."

Everyone turned their heads to see who had shot down the idea.

Ash had his head down, his eyes shut as he sat cross legged before the fire. "I sent them in there." He said, raising his head and opening his eyes, "I alone must get them out." He stood up and walked with poise to the old door, opening and closing it behind him after entering.

"He's sooo dreamy!" One of the girls pretended to swoon.

"He's…pretty brave." A boy replied, trying not to show his jealousy.

**Pagebreak**

_Hahaha, the plan is working perfectly!_ Ash ran through the hall, taking a right at the last room and tearing up the stairs with expert speed. _I get to be the hero AND get the girl! Brilliant!_

Ash had actually planned the whole night in advance with his older brother, a senior in high school named Gary, whom he had blackmailed into helping him. The plan was to get a group together in front of the building and trick Carlee into accepting a dare into the house. Then, once she was on the second floor and almost into the attic, Gary (dressed up in a seaweed monster suit, since that was the only costume they could find that would fit a six-foot-two-inch tall guy) would grab her and trap her. Carlee's scream would be the signal for Ash to come in. He would give a performance worthy of Hercules to the teens around the fire and "fight" Gary, who would (of course) lose. After that, he and Carlee would leave the house, and she would be so grateful to him for saving her that she would become his girlfriend.

Violet wasn't supposed to be involved originally, but Ash decided that it was only a minor setback. After all, how could two scrawny _girls_ fend off his football playing brother?

He paused for a moment before entering the room with the door leading to the attic, smoothing back his hair and puffing up his chest in a show of bravado. Then he swept into the room with a flourish.

"Carlee, I've come to save—"

Gary lay moaning on the floor, lying on his back with his legs and arms splayed out. "My back…my back…" He groaned.

"Gary?" Ash ran over to the seaweed monster, kneeling down beside him, "What happened?"

"Man, bro, that girl is a freakin' tiger. You only said there'd only be one, not two! I grabbed one of them, the one wearing some sort of kimono, and reached out to grab the one dressed like a hippy—but that one karate chopped my arm and then dove at me! She was making all these weird noises, too—she was barking and hissing and growling and holy crud, bro, why would you EVER want to date a crazy girl like that?" Gary asked, taking the head off of the sea monster costume to glare at his younger brother, perspiring from exertion.

"Wait, did Carlee scream when she was fighting you?" Ash asked, his blood turning to ice as he stared into his brother's chocolate brown eyes.

"No…she was too busy barkin' and hissin'—wait! Where are you goin'?" Gary called as Ash bolted up the attic stairs.

He fumbled for the doorknob in the darkness, but when he turned it the door refused to open. Ash threw his body against the door, once, twice…the third time it flew open and he fell out upon the floor. A chair crashed onto its side on the floor as well, explaining why the old door wouldn't open at first.

"Carlee! Violet?" He called, looking around desperately for the two girls.

He spotted something shiny out of the corner of his eye in the center of the room, and he crawled forward on his hands and knees to investigate…two separate gold necklaces. Ash picked them up slowly, carefully, cradling them in his palms with dread.

A shadow moved across the window, cutting through the moonlight. Ash jerked upright, looking up to the source of the shadow immediately. The attic door slammed shut with a loud crash, and the chair moved up of its own accord to jam the doorknob once again, locking everyone who dared to enter out once again.

Ash stared up into the malevolent eyes of what seemed to be a demon. It stood on two legs like a man, but had the features of an animal: two large, pointed ears…long, curving black quills with gray stripes on them, spreading out from behind its head…a patch of white fur on its chest…

It stared back down at Ash through glowing green emerald eyes, eyes with pupils slit like a snake's.

"Who…What are you?" Ash asked angrily, his voice faltering.

The demon chuckled darkly and began to speak. Ash got goosebumps as he realized that the creature had no mouth.

"Who and what I am is none of your concern, Ash Brockilar." It said in a deep, masculine voice.

"You—How did you know my name?" Ash stood up, trying to show the creature that he was not afraid. He needn't have bothered.

"How wouldn't I know your name?" The demon responded, cocking its head to the side in a way that made it look unattached to its body, "You've been coming here every day for the past two weeks, poking your nose into every crevice of this house in a ludicrous plot to win the affections of a girl who could care less. _**YOU ARE A FOOL!**_"

Ash flinched as the words shook through his bones and seeped deep into his core, stepping back slightly as the demonic hedgehog creature frowned down upon him.

"You came so close to discovering the truth, SO CLOSE!" The demon roared, "Unable to keep your hands off every little thing! You even uncovered His painting, though you were too stupid to recognize who He was!"

Ash was confused. He'd looked all over the house so much in the past few weeks that he didn't even remember all of what he'd seen and hadn't seen; he'd only memorized the route up to the attic, and then only during the day when it was bright out and he could see well. He vaguely remembered a portrait of a fat guy, but then there were other paintings in the house as well, and then he had memories of a recent art field trip on top of that. "Painting?" He asked, perplexed, raising an eyebrow at the demon.

"Ohhh, but _she_ knew. Oh yes, she knew who it was…" The demon mused, mostly to itself.

Ash jerked back slightly, looking directly into the snake eyes of the demon. "What did you say?"

"She knew too much. If she told…" The demon shook its head, its quills bristling, "It was too much of a risk. She had to be eliminated."

"Eliminated?" Ash yelped, his hair standing on end, "What have you done to Carlee? And Violet?"

"You know too much now, too. You will have to be disposed of as well." The demon muttered, lifting its head once again and frowning dangerously down at Ash.

Ash grabbed a chair, flinging the dust cover off of it and raising it above his head. "You'll never kill me! And you're going to bring them back or else—" He jerked to a stop in the middle of his dash at the demon, suddenly unable to move.

The demon had one hand outstretched toward Ash, its shadow touching his and forcing him to freeze in his place. "An interesting thing, your shadow…" The demon mused once again, smiling without lips down at Ash, "Do you truly control it? Or, possibly, does _it_ control_ you?_"

The demon laughed as Ash's eyes grew wide with fright. Purple crystals suddenly began growing from its quills and the tips of its gloved fingers, and it rose up to float a few feet above the floor, towering over Ash and casting his shadow directly over top of him from the middle of the window, illuminated by the moon behind.

"Ash!" Gary pounded on the door from outside as the demon continued to laugh louder and louder, "Ash! Open the door! NOW!"

The demon raised his gloved hand with the cruel, sharp purple claws to catch the moon's rays in its crystalline shards. Then, without another moment's pause, he slashed them directly at Ash. Ash screamed.

Gary burst through the door, knocking the chair under the doorknob out to the side. "ASH!"

No one was in the room. The empty window poured moonlight out over the floor, spreading over a chair that had crashed on its side in the middle of the room as Gary had entered. Something seemed to glitter from underneath the chair.

Gary slowly came forward and kneeled down, setting the chair upright and shakily picking up the objects underneath. He lifted three heart shaped lockets from the floor; two gold, one silver. Each necklace was attached to a chain of the opposite metal. The room was filled with a deafening silence as he gently pried each one open.

The first gold locket opened to show a picture of Violet on one side, laughing, trapped in time. On the other side, mirroring the girl, was the picture of an odd anthropomorphic orange fox, laughing as well.

The second gold locket revealed a picture of Carlee grinning cockily on one side, flashing a two fingered peace sign at the viewer. On the other side, like a mirror, a blue hedgehog was pictured flashing an identical trademark grin and a peace sign as well.

The silver locket held a picture of Ash looking away from the viewer at a sunset…and a pink hedgehog watched the same sunset, from the opposite side.

_Author's Notes: I meant to upload this yesterday but forgot! I'm planning to upload chapters every Friday from now on. On another note, heeeeeeeeey, looks like we're finally getting somewhere ;D_


	5. The First Arrival

**Chapter Five: The First Arrival**

Shadow the Hedgehog stood atop a small hill, in the shade of an old, gnarled tree. The sun was out again today, bright and cheerful and hope-inducing as ever.

He hated it.

A small wind blew through, giving him a slight chill as he stood in the insufficient darkness of the tree. To his left an extensive forest sprawled over the landscape, with a few treeless patches that held simple green grass and which fed the small herds of deer and rabbits that lived there. To his right was a long dirt road which wound its way around some small ponds and flowered fields. Some houses were built along the road, far apart from each other. Behind him lay a city long abandoned by its inhabitants. Indeed, it had been about fifty years since the last humans had been seen on Mobius. They had all disappeared long ago. Legend told of a black cloud that covered the earth like fog, seeping into every room of every house and building for about ten minutes in total. Then the dark cloud dissipated…and when all was clear again, there wasn't a human to be seen. From the smallest of babes to the oldest of men, every human on the planet had simply disappeared.

Every human.

Except one.

Shadow frowned, looking up at the sky with a thought-filled glare. "Robotnik…" He growled, staring up into the heavens with barely controlled rage, "Where are you hiding?"

The city lay in ruins. Streets were cracked and torn up. The walls were filled with hateful graffiti—the ones that weren't destroyed, that is. No one with any decency lived there anymore. Gangs of restless mobians had taken over Station Square, thrilled at the prospect of so many 'human' things being left behind and eager to claim all the items and land for their own.

_Thank God they weren't able to get into the G.U.N. arsenal_, Shadow thought, staring intently at the sky, _this place would be blown up by now._

G.U.N.

Shadow lowered his head, closing his eyes and leaning back against the centuries-old tree in thought.

"_Shadow!"_

"_Maria! We have to run! There isn't much time!"_

"_Shadow, I'm not going to make it!"_

"_Take my hand!"_

…

"_What are you doing? You have to get inside with me, now! Maria, please!"_

"_Shadow…"_

Shadow opened his eyes as the sound of a gunshot rang out in his mind. He slipped down from his position against the tree to sit on the ground. "Maria…" He closed his eyes briefly, envisioning the honey blond girl that haunted his dreams, "Why did you do it? ...Why did you throw it all away?"

Thunder boomed across the sky, breaking into his thoughts. The image of Maria shattered. Shadow's eyes snapped open and he looked back up at the sky in confusion. _Thunder?_

The sky was still a bright and beautiful blue, just as before, and the sun still shone cheerfully over the land. But there, directly above the forest, high in the sky, a swirling black cloud was forming. Lightning crackled within it, lighting up patches of the cloud in dark purple as it quickly expanded.

"What the Hell?" Shadow stood up, taking a step forward on the hill. Even in Mobius, storms didn't come into existence out of nowhere, and never that blindingly fast.

The cloud continued expanding for another minute and then, as abruptly as it had started forming, it stopped. The cloud continued to swirl in an agitated circle, lightning flashing through it. Something dark fell from within the cloud and plummeted into a treeless patch of the forest below. The cloud dissipated within seconds afterward.

This was too much for Shadow. "That is in no way _natural_." He said, clicking his shoes together. The hover gear in them activated and he took off, streaking down the hill in the direction of the landing place of the thing that had fallen from the sky.

He quickly reached the forest's edge and dove in through the underbrush, weaving between trees and jumping over logs in the semi-darkness of the barely illuminated forest until he finally came to a clearing. In the center he saw something bright and colorful in the grass. He came forward to see it…and then jumped back in complete shock.

A human girl? A human girl, dressed in a rainbow tie-dyed shirt and badly patched jeans, had fallen from a black cloud in the sky that formed and dissipated within minutes, just like the opposite of the legend? Shadow kneeled down beside the girl, gently touching her arm with a gloved hand. She didn't move. He tenderly brushed a few strands of hair off of her face where they had fallen, examining her carefully. She was so pale…it had been so long since he'd seen a human girl, even his memories of Maria were slightly fuzzy…were humans supposed to be this white in coloration? He didn't believe so…

This girl looked a lot like Maria, actually…aside from a slightly darker hair color and different clothing, she could definitely pass for Maria in a darkened room…

No…

Shadow stood up slowly, remorsefully. He would not get attached to this girl like he had been to Maria. She was white as a sheet; humans always had some coloration, at least in the cheeks…didn't they? She had to be dead.

Shadow tore his eyes away from the girl's face, turning away from her with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Nobody could've survived that fall…" He reasoned aloud, thinking of how high the black cloud had been in the sky.

"Mmm…?"

Shadow straightened up at the sound and quickly turned to look back again at the girl. Her eyes were open halfway. Her eyelids glittered, and her eyes themselves were stunning. He fell to one knee beside the girl, looking deeply into her eyes and registering each of the different colors in his memory.

_It's like a rainbow…a beautiful, radial rainbow…_ He thought to himself, his eyes widening with even greater surprise.

The girl looked sorrowfully up at him, her eyes glistening with fearful tears.

"I'm not gonna hurt you…" Shadow reached toward her, trying to assure her that he meant what he said, but before he could even finish the sentence the girl's eyes flicked shut and she sighed, sinking further into the grass.

Shadow's mouth twitched downward in a slightly sad frown. He carefully pushed one arm underneath the girl's knees, and then pushed the other under her neck. He stood up, lifting her off of the ground bridal-style. Her head hung limply over his arm, long hair cascading over it to his knees. He shook his quills and the red stripes on them seemed to glow.

"Chaos control!" Shadow commanded.

He and his prize were enveloped with light. Within seconds, they both disappeared.

**Pagebreak**

The crystal orb began to glow, for the first time since he had received it so many years ago. Within it, seven symbols appeared, floating at a perfect distance apart from each other, each different in coloration from the others.

"Finally…" The man flexed his fingers, a smile creeping across his aged visage, "It is time…"

_Author's Notes: *facepalm* It seems like every time I put up a new chapter I have to answer some hard questions xD Ok, Ash's name is not from Pokemon. Let us compare and contrast:_

_Name: Ash Ketchum Name: Ash Brockilar_

_Eye Color: Blue Eye Color: Hazel_

_Older Brother: None Older Brother: Yes, Gary Brockilar_

_Major Goal: Catch all pokemon Major Goal: Catch Carlee's heart_

_Hair Color: Black Hair Color: Red/brown_

_Age: 10 Age: 17_

_Best Friend: Pikachu Best Friend: None stated_

_Ash K's Personality: Headstrong, incorruptible, loyal_

_Ash B's Personality: Easily angered, controlled by emotions, easily mislead_

_Ash K's Clothing: Trademark hat, jacket, black shirt, jeans, shoes, belt with pokeballs on it_

_Ash B's Clothing: No hat, necklace with a flame pendant, red shirt, no belt, beige pants, shoes_

_Named after pokemon characters? No, not quite. If I remember correctly, Gary Oak is not Ash Ketchum's older brother. In the first edition of Of Shapeshifters and Violets, Ash's older brother was actually named Brock, and I thought that was too similarly likened to pokemon so I changed his older brother's name to Gary in this version and put "Brock" in his and Gary's last name as a sort of a farewell-to-arms of Gary's old name. But even if the names are similar, the characters are drastically different; and besides, who ever said that the Pokemon Team had a copyright on first names? O.o;_


	6. Lost in Space?

**Chapter Six: Lost (In Space?)**

"Ohhh…my head…" Carlee moaned, reaching up to rub her temples with her hands. Her eyes flew open suddenly. "Violet!" She sat up quickly, looking around for her young friend.

Violet was nowhere to be seen. Carlee was in a small room with three blank silver walls: behind her, and to the left and right of her. Directly ahead of where she was sitting was a clear, glass wall, which showed inky darkness and stars outside…and what appeared to a small planet as well. Earth? Carlee looked down in confusion to see that she was sitting on a small cot, on top of the sheets. Excepting this cot, the room was completely bare.

"What…Where am I?" Carlee asked aloud, rubbing her head. The pain was quickly receding.

A door in the left wall by the glass window opened suddenly, with the accompanying sound of changing gears. A black, anthropomorphic hedgehog stepped in.

Carlee clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream and looked for a place to hide. There was none. She flew back against the wall, standing up on the cot with wide eyes.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" She yelled at him, anger and fear clouding her judgment.

The black hedgehog sneered at her. "Is that any way to talk to your savior?" He asked her in an irritated tone.

"Huh?" Carlee looked closer. This hedgehog had red-striped quills…not gray. His eyes were the same color, rather than the green of that…thing…and the pupils were round, not slit. "Oh…" She looked down, embarrassed, "…Sorry?"

She instantly berated herself for apologizing. The response had been automatic. How could she be sure he'd even 'saved' her? What if he was just like that other hedgehog thing? And why should she have to apologize anyway? She had to keep her guard up.

The hedgehog began to walk closer.

"S-stay away from me." She warned him, inwardly cursing herself for stammering.

The hedgehog paused, then smirked slightly at her, his ears twitching. Was he…laughing at her?

"Afraid I'm going to eat you?" He asked, tilting his head slightly at her. His eyes had melted from the hardened disdain they'd held moments before to hold a mischievous sparkle in its place.

Carlee eyed his sharp canine teeth nervously, choosing not to respond.

The hedgehog started walking toward her again.

"No, really, I mean it!" Carlee warned him nervously, "I've got a can of mace and I'm not afraid to use it!" She shoved her hand into one of her pockets, digging around inside for the can as the hedgehog continued calmly walking toward her.

She pulled out a rubber duck, a piece of string, a bouncy ball, two sticks of gum, a shiny rock, three pennies and a nickel, a chess piece, a seashell, a pocket notebook, four pencils, a ballpoint pen, a keychain, a heart necklace, a spork with the two inner tines flipped down to make it look like batman, a pair of socks, a bag of jelly beans, a blue diamond-studded bracelet with the name 'Shelby' on it, two erasers, a small plastic camel with a blue bow tied around its neck, a pink feather, a paper-doll-chain, her empty wallet, a plain white teapot, an empty tissue box, a single walky-talkie, a slip of paper with the name 'Jose' written in cursive script on it, a tiny wolf figurine, a bag of rabbit-shaped graham crackers, a glasses case (not hers), a shoe without its mate, an oven mitt, a handkerchief with an embroidered M on it, a scratched CD, a black plastic wand with white tips, a birthday card, an old VHS tape, some sunglasses, a stuffed animal rabbit (pulled out by the ears), the comics section of a newspaper, a camera, a cracked porcelain bowl, a dream-catcher, an empty photo album, a jar of pickles, a 2-year calendar, a pillow case, an entire slab of grilled steak (which she then immediately shoved in her other pocket, muttering something about 'roleplays with snake15000 and ladyrowen' under her breath), some paper clips, a bowler hat, a toothbrush, a stick, a four-foot-long chain of rainbow links that were connected together, and, finally, a penknife with a broken-off tip that made it blunt along its edge.

She thrust this menacingly toward the anthropomorphic hedgehog, who by this time was standing at her bedside and staring at the items she had pulled out of her pocket, which lay in a pile around her feet on the bed. He looked up at her shaking hand and frowned. In a lightning fast move he smacked the broken knife out of her hand, sending it flying across the room. "Don't be ridiculous." He muttered, the playful look gone from his eyes.

Carlee flattened herself against the wall, deciding that digging in her pocket for more ammo was a lost cause. Her hand smarted from where the hedgehog had smacked it. "If you're going to kill me, at least have the decency to make it quick." She said, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and bracing herself.

The hedgehog crossed his arms. "I'd forgotten how difficult humans could be." He muttered, tapping his foot.

Carlee stayed against the wall, not responding, keeping her eyes shut.

"I'm not going to kill you!" The hedgehog face-palmed, frustrated with the antics of this girl. Perhaps it hadn't been a good idea to take her in after all.

"But…the other one…he looked just like you…and he said he had to get rid of me…" Carlee stammered, opening her eyes to look down at the hedgehog, "Isn't that why you're here?"

"Other hedgehog?" The black hedgehog took his hand off of his face for a moment to look up at Carlee, only to immediately slap his forehead once again, "Let me guess…he was blue?" _Why the HECK does everyone keep thinking we look alike?_ He asked himself in aggravation.

"No…he was black, like you, but with gray stripes. His eyes were green and he had pupils like a serpent." Carlee replied hesitantly.

The hedgehog stared up at her. "What is your name?" He asked, watching her studiously.

"I'm Carlee…" Carlee responded uncertainly, "Do you have a name?"

"I'm Shadow," The hedgehog said, blinking at her, "Shadow the Hedgehog. And I swear that I am not going to hurt you. Will you come down from there now?"

Shadow reached out his hand to Carlee, and, after a moment's hesitation, she accepted it, stepping over the pile of things she'd pulled from her pocket to stand beside him. He was smaller than she was, which was rather disconcerting to her.

"What's wrong?" He asked, looking up at her worriedly.

"Nothing…" Carlee averted her eyes, staring off (quite literally) into space. "Where are we?" She asked, looking toward him again.

"On the Space Colony ARK." Shadow replied, pulling her over to the panoramic window, "Down there is our planet, Mobius."

"Mobi-what?" Carlee asked in confusion. The continents did look a bit funny.

"This is where I live," Shadow continued, ignoring her question, "I brought you here after finding you laying on the ground in the forest…You fell from a black cloud in the sky."

Carlee had no recollection of these events. She did remember the sensation of falling, and a gloved hand reaching toward her…but not much else.

"Now it's my turn to ask you some questions. Sit." He pointed over to the cot, turning away from the glass wall.

_What am I, a dog?_ Carlee thought to herself, peeved. Still, she obeyed the command, walking over to the cot and sitting on it compliantly.

"First off, I want to know how you got here." Shadow said, leaning back against the glass and crossing his arms over his chest again, "Humans haven't been seen in this world for decades."

_Decades?_ Carlee thought. "I went into a supposedly haunted house with my friend Violet, on a dare. When we got to the attic room a hedgehog similar in appearance to you was there. He said something about me knowing too much and said that we both had to be 'eliminated.' Then these weird purple crystals started growing out of his fingers and quills and he leapt toward us with his hands out like he was going to claw us apart!"

_No wonder she was afraid of me_… Shadow felt bad about teasing her, now. _She probably DID think I was going to eat her._

"Have you seen Violet?" Carlee asked, concerned, "She looks kind of like me, only with darker brown hair and wearing a Chinese silk bathrobe."

"No. You were the only girl in the clearing. I didn't see anyone else fall out of the cloud." Shadow replied.

Carlee clasped her hands together. _I must be here alone…_ She thought sadly.

_Crap._ Shadow thought, watching her, _I made her sad again._ "I have more questions." He informed her.

"Oh…sorry." Carlee flinched.

"Who are you? What's your age? Why are you wearing those clothes?"

"Um, like I said, I'm Carlee. That's with two E's now, no I's, no Y's. I hate when people spell my name those ways, it's very annoying. I'm seventeen, just turned a couple months ago in fact. And…" Carlee trailed off, staring at Shadow.

"What?" He asked.

"Uh…" Carlee stared at Shadow, "could you please not do that?"

"Do what?"

"You're leaning against the glass and it's freaking me out." Carlee laughed nervously.

Shadow smiled slightly. "It's several inches thick. I'm not going to break through it and it won't fall out, I assure you." He said, rapping the glass with his knuckles.

"All the same I'd prefer it if you would lean somewhere else if you wanted to lean somewhere." Carlee replied sheepishly.

"Fine." Shadow complied with this, pleased with the idea that she was concerned for his safety. He walked over to sit beside her on the cot. "Again, why are you wearing those clothes?" Shadow looked at her jeans, repulsed.

"Oh; it's Halloween, or was. Everyone was dressed up. Except Ash. His costume sucked." Carlee chuckled, looking at Shadow, "He wore regular pants and a shirt and claimed he was a match. Lame."

"But you're wearing _pants_." Shadow said, looking at her with a mixture of incredulity and revulsion.

"Um, yeah. So?" Carlee asked, raising an eyebrow in question at him, "You're not wearing anything except shoes but you don't see me questioning it. Actually wait, I take that back, why are you wearing shoes but not pants or a shirt?"

Shadow ignored the second question and answered the first. "Girls don't wear pants." He said simply.

"They do in my world." Carlee replied with a slight frown, "Are you a chauvinist or something?"

"They let you roam around in haunted houses wearing raggedy jeans and blotchy shirts in your world?" Shadow asked, sounding utterly disgusted.

"Hey, like I said, that was a dare and it was Halloween. Besides, I like being dressed like a hippy. Feels a lot freer. Peace." Carlee flashed the two fingered sign at Shadow, a signal he recognized from Sonic and Tails.

"Well, in this world girls wear dresses or skirts and shirts. Except Rouge. But she's different." Shadow said, averting his eyes slyly.

"Who?" Carlee asked, confused.

"We need to get you out of those clothes and into some _real_ clothes." Shadow mused, thinking.

"Whoa now, hold on a second! Time out! Number one, these clothes are absolutely fine and number two, heck to the no!" Carlee jumped to her feet away from Shadow, looking back at him rebelliously and then digging into her pocket again. "Where's that can of mace?"

Shadow rolled his eyes and got up, grabbing Carlee tightly by the arm. "Don't worry, Vanilla will have something in her closets that will fit you, I'm sure." He assured her as Carlee tried futilely to pull out of his grasp. "CHAOS CONTROL!"

In a flash of red, the two were gone.

_Author's Notes:Haha, you thought I'd forgotten about my Friday uploads didn't you? Granted at 12:42 A.M. it is Saturday now, but simply getting on at this time should tell you I remembered! I just didn't get a chance earlier ^^; Either way I'll make it up to you guys if you heckle me enough._

_Roflcopter. I can change around the story as much as I want since the original was deleted, but I'm still gonna have this part in here since it was an integral part of the story. Well, not really, but heck it's funny. At least I can make the follow-up chapter less awkward and embarrassing upon reflection this time around. *facepalms* The things I wrote when I was fourteen! The horrors! For shame! D: Confused at Shadow's insistence that Carlee should wear more feminine attire? Think about it. The only human girl he's ever known is Maria, and she was dressed in entirely feminine attire. She looked like a generic sweety-pie girl wearing a hairband and a skirt and a shirt that was in no way revealing. It only follows that he'd be confused when he sees a girl wearing pants like the gross male Eggman wears, right? Sega is so sexist LOL._

_Hooray for hidden shout-outs at people!_


	7. What Are Friends For?

**Chapter Seven: What Are Friends For?**

"Hey?"

Violet heard someone calling her. The voice seemed so far away…

"Hey?" The voice was louder now. It sounded like a young boy… "Are you all right?"

Violet's fingers twitched and she tried to open her eyes. She opened them for a split second and then squeezed them tightly shut again, gripping the grass tightly with pain. The sun seemed to be directly above her, so bright, too bright in the sky. Something had partly blocked the sun, two large eyes staring back into hers with concern. Violet let the sun beat down on her eyelids, trying to let her eyes adjust. Then she opened them again slightly, peering to her right at the person who had blocked out the light. Two sky-blue eyes stared back into hers from a furry orange face, three bangs flopping in between these eyes.

Violet gasped and sat up quickly, scrambling back a few feet from the creature, who had fallen over backwards himself in surprise at the fast movement. "W-What are you?" Violet pointed at the creature, who stared back at her in confusion.

"Me? What are _you?_" He asked, pointing back at her.

Their fingertips touched and they each recoiled as they felt a spark of static electricity jolt through their index fingers.

"I'm a human?"

"What?" The creature yelped with surprise, peering forward to examine her, his ears pricking towards her in interest.

Violet studied him as he studied her. He seemed to be some sort of anthropomorphic fox. He was orange, with white belly fur and an equally white muzzle. His inner ears were white and gray. He wore white gloves and red shoes with a filled white circle on the tip of each shoe; shoes which were coated with bits of grass from the surrounding area, Violet realized, as she discovered that she was sitting in a grassy meadow. His tail was what gave away his species—or rather, his tail_s_, of which he had two. The white-tipped orange tails were waving in the air as he sat forward, his hands and knees on the ground as he looked closely at her.

"What's so strange about that?" Violet asked him, confused.

"Humans haven't been seen around here in years!" The fox replied incredulously, his nose twitching as he sniffed in her scent, "Well, except one, but he doesn't count 'cause he's a tyrant."

Violet's eyes filled with worry. "What?" She squawked, shocked at this news, "In years? How old are you?"

"I'm eight." The fox replied, sitting back on the grass again and curling his tails around him, "How old are you?"

"I'm fifteen." Violet responded, feeling more lost than ever. _I must have gone crazy_… She thought as she stared at the fox.

"My name's Tails. Well, actually it's my nickname, but I don't like my real one." The fox offered Violet his hand to shake.

"I'm Violet." Violet shook hands with him, grinning at him and tilting her head to the side, "I don't like my real name either, that's my nickname…where exactly am I?"

"Well…We're in one of the fields outlying the Great Forest." Tails replied, shrugging, "Right on the bank of the river." He said, gesturing to a quiet stream of flowing water a few meters behind Violet.

Violet had never heard of this forest. "Um…let me rephrase the question…" Violet said, thinking of the events prior to her waking up, "What planet am I on?"

"Mobius of course; where else?" Tails replied manner-of-factly.

"Oh God…" Violet covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide with horror. A new thought popped into her head. "Have you seen Carlee?"

"Who?" Tails asked, perplexed.

"She's my friend, she's 17 and looks like a hippy—it's Halloween, you see, and we were dressed up." Violet grimaced at her silk bathrobe, which was covered in grass and dirt. Her parents were going to kill her for ruining it…if she ever saw them again.

"Is she a human too?"

"…You haven't seen her, have you?"

"Nope."

Violet looked around. No one else was in the field. "Oh no…" Violet thought about the horrible hedgehog creature, looking down with dread. _He must still have her_…

"Hey?" Tails tugged on her bathrobe, "Do you want to come back to my place? Maybe she'll turn up later, I can ask my friends if they've seen her, too."

Violet smiled slightly at the little fox. "Thank you." She said, looking into his eyes.

"No problem; what are friends for?" He replied, standing up and offering her a hand.

_Friends?_ Violet looked up at Tails, who smiled warmly down at her. She accepted the hand and pulled herself upright, noticing that he was considerably smaller than she.

"Yeah," She said to him, ruffling his bangs, "What are friends for?"

Tails grinned fully back at her, then pulled his hand from hers and started running across the clearing. "Come on, this way! We can ride back to my workshop in the Tornado!"

"The what?" Violet asked as she ran after him.

"My airplane."

"YOUR WHAT?"

_Author's Notes: Waah! This chapter's so short that I'm gonna have to put up another one right afterwards to make up for it! It's longer than the original which was about half a page long if memory serves me correctly, but after posting around five to six pages worth of story for the rest of the chapters I feel bad! Stay tuned for the next chapter, which will be posted in half a week in addition to next Friday's chapter!_

_As to your question, Reed Raze Gale, you'll find out when that chapter comes ;D I just finished writing that chapter actually._


	8. Fire and Ashes

**Chapter Eight: Fire and Ashes**

Ash slammed his fist into the tree, feeling bits of bark crush beneath his knuckles. Seconds later pain coursed through his hand and he jumped back from the little tree, waving his hand in the air and howling with pain.

The whole situation sucked! What had he done to deserve any of this _crap?_

These were the two predominant thoughts in his mind as he wandered through the forest at the bottom of the volcano.

The last thing he remembered before blacking out were those crystalline purple claws coming at him, and then he had woken up on the top of that massive volcano, so close to the edge that if he had rolled over in his sleep he would've fallen down into the lava. He had immediately scrambled away from that dangerous precipice and looked out to see miles of forest in every direction below him. With nothing else to do, he had climbed down the side of the volcano and begun walking in a random direction, hoping to stumble upon a way out, or at least find some food. That had been about two hours ago, by his estimation. The sun hung low in the sky.

"This isn't FAIR!" Ash roared at the sky, cradling his stinging hand.

The longer he walked in the forest the more frustrated he felt. Every tree looked exactly the same. A small squirrel peered out from under a bush at him. He threw a rock at it and the little creature bounded away. Ash sat on a fallen log, glaring at the leaves on the ground and pondering the situation.

All he had wanted was to have a good time. He had thrown a Halloween party at a well known historical landmark, he had put together extensive plans, and he had achieved a number of goals in a short period of time, save for his major one:

Obtaining her.

Ash dug his fingers in his scalp, gritting his teeth as he thought about her. From the moment he'd first seen her he knew she had to be his. She was so popular, so pretty, even back then. But of course he was too shy to tell her, and besides that, back then all the girls had cooties. The only way he'd known to express his love for her then was to throw mud and sand at her on the playground.

But as he'd grown older his feelings evolved, and he began to understand the true meaning of courtship. He started hanging around her, he formed a posse to show her how popular he could be, he practiced his strut in the mirror in the bathroom at home (much to his sister's chagrin, as she always complained that he spent more time on his looks than even she did.) Nothing seemed to work. Every time he passed her by she looked the other way, and every time he popped up she blew him off.

This time it should've worked! Ash growled in frustration, getting up and pacing off again, trying to control his temper.

The plan had been brilliant! He had placed a note in Carlee's locker, instructing her to come to an awesome Halloween Bash at the Old Grimmsby Place with the promise that she wouldn't regret coming. And she'd actually shown up! But then Violet had shown up too…

_This was all her fault_, he decided, _If _she_ hadn't shown up, none of this would've happened!_

If Violet hadn't been there, Carlee would've been caught and tied up by Gary, and then Ash would've gone in single and come out in a relationship. What better way to prove what a great guy he was than to save her from a monster in a haunted house? (Disregarding the fact that it all was a setup by the spectacular guy, that is)

But no, Violet had to go in too, and then they actually made it to the attic and the _real_ monster had gotten them. And him as well. And now he was stuck here, alone, with no food, no water, and nothing but fricken' trees for miles around! And on top of that, he'd almost landed in lava ON A FRIGGIN' VOLCANO!

Ash tripped and fell on his face as he thought about that last part, which only worsened his mood. He roared, getting back up and slamming his fist into the large, upturned root of the centuries-old tree, not caring about the fact that it would hurt his knuckles again.

But instead of hitting the tree root and bruising his knuckles once more, the tree root spontaneously combusted upon being hit. Within seconds the root was reduced to ash by the angry flames that hungrily licked at the wood of the old tree.

Ash stared at his hand, confused at what had just happened. He stared at his hand, concentrating. His hand felt like it was heating up. Suddenly fire erupted from it, covering his hand completely, but not burning his skin off.

It didn't even hurt.

Ash looked down at his other hand, grinning menacingly as he concentrated. It too lit on fire.

"Finally…" Ash growled under his breath. "Finally, _A WAY TO RELEASE MY ANGER_!" He roared, thrusting his arms out at his sides. Fire erupted from his hands, spreading out far from his arms and crashing with unrelenting violence through the trees.

The fire spread wildly through the trees, greedily licking branches of unaffected trees and then mercilessly taking them over, eating them, burning them to the ground. Ash thrust his hands ahead of him, burning the trees and laughing feverishly at the destruction as tears sprang into his eyes. Squirrels and rabbits fled through the underbrush as flames threatened their lives. Creatures sprang from their burrows in terror, darting away with their eyes rolling wildly. Birds took flight, crying to the sky with abject horror at the devastation of their hard-built nests. Wildlife evacuated the scene in a panic as Ash laughed bitterly, tears spilling over the dirt coating his face as he wept with emotional release.

This heartless, irrevocable destruction was his only consolation for the injustice served to him over the past two days! This angry, ravenous fire quenched his need for compensation! _THIS WAS HIS REVENGE!_

The trees burnt down to cinders and ashes, disappearing within minutes. Centuries of life were gone in a flash, with only blackened smudges on the tired soil to testify to their memory. The flames continued on.

Finally the fire stream pumping from Ash's hands began to grow thinner, slowing to a trickle, and then finally stopping with a sigh from his tired fingertips. He fell to the ground on his hands and knees, coughing as the black smoke from the fire entered his lungs and stung at his eyes. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, sniffling and wiping away the tears. He stood, on hands and knees, in the direct center of a perfect circle of blackened devastation. On the outer edges of this huge circle, a few twigs still burned and smoldered. The smoke rose from the ground gradually, filling the sky with a billowing black cloud.

"That was very impressive."

Ash whirled around upon hearing the voice to see a rather corpulent man standing above him, looking down at him with opaque blue glasses. The man wore a red zippered coat and had an orange mustache. He was bald. In his hand he carried a long black scepter with a small, glowing white ball on the top, a ball which swirled with different colors.

"Who are you?" Ash asked, getting up and taking a fighting stance toward the man.

The man simply laughed in response. "My dear boy, do not feel threatened by me." He said, placing his free hand on his hip in a relaxed pose, "My name is Doctor Robotnik." He introduced himself, bowing slightly at Ash in a friendly gesture, "And who might you be?" He asked pleasantly.

"…My name's Ash…" Ash said, straightening up from his fighting stance and taking a slightly more relaxed pose, rubbing one arm nervously. "You're that guy from the painting?" He said, looking closely at the man.

"Painting? I assure you I have no idea what you are talking about." The man adjusted his collar, frowning slightly as Ash continued.

"Yeah you are, you look just like him, it must be you." Ash pressed on, looking at the taller man, who was easily a foot above him in height (quite a feat as Ash was about six feet tall in the first place)

"You must be mistaken. No one has ever painted me. Not that they could ever hope to capture such stunning good looks, hmm?" The man joked, raising an eyebrow at Ash in jest. Ash looked up at him, still uncertain. "Look now, my boy. I may not be the man from your painting, but I am a man of my word. I have big plans for this world, you see—big plans, and I need your help to bring them to fruition." The man knelt down to look at Ash eye-to-eye.

"Me? What can I do?" Ash asked, confused.

"My boy," The man said, gesturing to the scorched land around them, "Look at the power you hold in your hands, and tell me…what _can't_ you do?"

Ash looked down at his hands in contemplation. A sudden thought struck his mind and he looked up at the man, his eyes holding guarded resolve. "What's in it for me?"

"Think of every thing you've ever wanted." The man said, "Think of every thing you've always dreamed of having…"

"Yes…" Ash's eyes glittered hungrily, making him look more animal than human.

"What do you want more than anything else in the world? Fame? Fortune? _Power?_"

Flames danced in Ash's eyes. "Carlee." He said huskily.

"Follow me and she is yours forever." The man reached out his hand to Ash in offering.

Ash grasped it tightly. "I accept."

_Author's Notes: Well that can't be good…_

_Looks like Ash has gone completely nuts. Doesn't he remember the legend of he mustached man? Is he really THAT obsessed with Carlee? And what's with the wacko-flame-powers all of a sudden? Maybe that sucky costume was more fitting for him than any other costume would've been. Ash has all the luck, doesn't he? Carlee gets found by Shadow minutes after plummeting from the sky, Violet lands in a soft, grassy field and is discovered by Tails, and poor Ash nearly goes up in flames the moment he falls from the clouds and now he's following notorious villain number one around like a puppy dog._

_Hey, wait a minute…if Ash has gained fire powers, does that mean Carlee and Violet are embracing new abilities as well?_

_Stay tuned!_


	9. A Slight Wardrobe Change

**Chapter Nine: A Slight Wardrobe Change**

Carlee glared at Shadow as she walked out of the closet. Much to her confusion, they had disappeared from the small room on Space Colony Ark and reappeared outside of a quaint little cottage on the planet she had stared at from space just minutes before. The hedgehog had politely knocked on the door and a minute later a little anthropomorphic rabbit had opened it, staring up at them.

The little rabbit wore a red dress with a white collar, and she was cream colored—that was her name, in fact: Cream. Flying by her head was a blue and yellow thing that looked like nothing Carlee had ever seen before. She was told that this blob-looking thing was a 'chao,' and that its (his?) name was Cheese. Cheese wore a red bowtie around his neck and took an immediate liking to Carlee, flying around her in circles and chirping, "Choo! Choo!"

Cream's mother was about Carlee's height and looked like an older version of her daughter, only with ruffled bangs and a longer dress. Her name was Vanilla. She blinked in confusion when she first saw Shadow and Carlee on her doorstep, but pleasantly invited them both in, offering them tea.

Carlee immediately recognized the puns in each of their names: Cream Cheese, Vanilla Cream. She couldn't help wondering if this was intentional or sheer luck. The rabbits and chao were so welcoming and friendly that she didn't want to offend them by asking, however, so she kept her mouth shut.

Shadow had explained about Carlee, though Vanilla had been too polite to ask. She accepted that Carlee was a "poor little dear" (her words) and was lost and alone until Shadow had found her in the forest. She also agreed to help find Carlee a nice dress for her to wear while she was stuck here.

Which brought them up to now.

Carlee looked back to sweetly smile at Vanilla, who seemed very pleased at how well her dress fit Carlee. Then she turned away from the rabbit's face to glare bloody daggers at Shadow again. Shadow leaned back on the couch, one leg hooked over its arm. He smiled with pleasure, ignoring the glare.

"That will do perfectly, Vanilla." He said, giving Carlee a once-over.

The dress was red and glittery, wrapping tightly around her figure and bringing out the color of the red ring in her eyes.

"You look beautiful, darling!" Vanilla showered Carlee with praise, looking as pleased as punch.

"You do look very pretty, Ms. Carlee!" Cream hugged Carlee's legs tightly through the dress as Cheese fluttered around Carlee's head, dancing with maracas in the air.

Carlee was not amused.

"We have to be on our way, now, Vanilla." Shadow stood up, walking over to the little group with a grin, "Thank you again for the nice dress, we really appreciate it. _Both_ of us." He added, elbowing Carlee in the side as she rolled her eyes.

"It was our pleasure, Shadow." Vanilla said, smiling warmly at the hedgehog, "You two take care now! Feel free to come back any time."

Carlee shuffled out the door after Shadow and Vanilla, Cream, and Cheese waved from the door as they started walking down the road. "Bye Mr. Shadow! Bye Ms. Carlee!"

Not long after leaving the house, Shadow was once again pleasantly talking to Carlee. There wasn't a cloud in the sky as the two strolled down the dirt path toward the forest where Shadow liked to spend the majority of his time. It was a hot day, the sun's rays beating down harshly overhead. Mobius was caught in the heated days of midsummer.

"I don't see the problem with dresses anyhow," Shadow said to Carlee, who trailed along miserably behind him, "You look great in that dress. It fits you quite nicely, unlike that awful baggy shirt you were wearing before. The pants were fitting, of course, but the patches on them made them tacky. You look a lot better now. Who would've known you had curves underneath that mess?"

With every step she took, Carlee's hatred for Shadow grew. Now she understood why Violet refused to wear anything girly in general. Already the dress was sticking like a second skin to her body, and she couldn't keep up with Shadow because her legs were constricted too much by the skirt. She couldn't move her arms much because of the stitching and the glitter was rubbing off on her skin, making it itch horribly. It was also getting increasingly hard to breathe because the fabric was too tight around her chest to let her lungs expand all the way when she breathed in, and coupled with the heated air she wondered if she was going to get heatstroke.

Presently Shadow realized that Carlee wasn't behind him anymore. "Carlee?" He looked back to see Carlee was almost a quarter of a mile behind him. He quickly ran back in confusion.

"What's the problem?" He asked her, noticing her face was turning red.

"Why don't—gasp—you wear—gasp—this dress and—gasp—find out for yourself?" Carlee huffed at him, feeling like she was dying.

Shadow suddenly realized that the dress, though form fitting and elegant looking, was much too tight to fit Carlee. He smacked his forehead. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

Carlee glared at Shadow in response, breathing in and out shallowly.

"Just a second, we'll go back and ask Vanilla for a different one." Shadow picked up Carlee bridal-style, sweeping one arm under her knees and catching her around the shoulders when she fell backwards. He raced back to Vanilla's house and reached it within seconds.

Carlee's hair got frazzled from this and she felt dizzy from the speed. Shadow placed her gently on her feet and steadied her, then knocked on the door.

"Mr. Shadow?" Cream was surprised at seeing the unlikely pair on her front doorstep again so soon, but she quickly smiled in happiness at their return and invited them in once again.

"Welcome back, dears," Vanilla said, coming out from the kitchen and wiping her fingers on a soft towel, "I didn't expect you to be here so soon. I was just starting to bake a batch of cookies."

Carlee felt even more out of place in this world. She had the sinking feeling she'd fallen into a science fiction movie or cartoon of some sort. She could see the trailer for it now:

_In a world where bunnies stand on two legs and bake cookies_

_ One girl will be forced to wear feminine attire by an anthropomorphic hedgehog…_

She facepalmed at the thought. Shadow looked up at her, confused by the action. Then he turned his attention back to Vanilla.

"My apologies, but the dress you picked out is too tight for Carlee to breathe in." He bluntly stated.

Vanilla looked closer at Carlee, who seemed to be hyperventilating. "Oh dear. I'm so sorry, dear, come back into my closet for a moment and we'll get you something a bit looser." She took Carlee gently by the hand and led her through her bedroom door, shutting it behind them.

Shadow settled back onto the couch to wait. Cream and Cheese worked on a puzzle on the floor below him.

"Put that piece over here, Cheese." Cream instructed as the little chao picked up a puzzle piece. The chao put it in the spot she indicated, fitting it perfectly on the puzzle.

_A puzzle…_ Shadow stared down at the little game as Cream and Cheese worked steadily to complete it. _But where do the pieces fit? The disappearance of humans fifty years ago…the sudden appearance of a single human girl…and some sort of gray striped hedgehog that looks like me, only more like a monster…what does it mean…?_

"Mr. Shadow?"

Shadow looked down to see Cream's large, soft brown eyes staring up into his hard red ones. He blinked. "Yes Cream?" He asked.

Cream pointed to his foot, where Shadow saw a puzzle piece sticking out from underneath. He moved his foot and the bunny quickly scooped it up. "Thank you!" She said gleefully, turning back to her puzzle.

She was so sweet. He'd never paid much attention to her, or to anyone else before, really, but Cream was an adorable little girl. Her mother was ladylike and kind, and didn't ask too many questions. They were the best candidates he could think of to come to for new clothes for Carlee. If he'd shown up at Amy Rose's place, the pink hedgehog would've pummeled him with questions about where she came from and what he was doing with her. She'd never quite gotten over that incident where she'd mistaken him for Sonic, though he personally couldn't see the resemblance, and she didn't trust him because of it. With Vanilla and Cream he wouldn't have to deal with any of that; the two seemed to take things in stride and automatically accept whoever appeared on their doorstep.

In fact, before today he'd only seen them a few times at most, and never at their home. He looked around at the clean living room, furnished with an interior decorator's sense of style and unity. All of the furniture looked to be antique, elegant and long-lasting. _Good quality stuff_, he thought with a slight grin.

"You like her a lot, don't you Mr. Shadow?" Cream asked, breaking into his thoughts.

"What?" He asked, caught off guard by the question.

"Miss Carlee. I said you seemed to like her a lot." Cream stared up at him from her seat on the floor, the completed puzzle lying on the white carpet beside her.

"I guess…" Shadow wasn't sure what Cream meant by that. He looked down at the innocent bunny warily.

"You act differently around her." Cream went on, "You seem happy."

Shadow thought about that. "What do you mean?" He asked.

"You look so relaxed and calm." Cream said, "And you smiled today. Three times!"

A specific number? Was this kid spying on him or something?

"Before when I saw you, you never smiled. You always seemed kind of sad about something." Cream's ears flopped down lower as her voice filled with sorrow at the end of her sentence, feeling sad at the hedgehog's sorrow. She didn't know of his past. No one did.

Shadow's lips twitched downward for a moment, and he reached forward to ruffle the young bunny's ears. "It's none of your concern." He said kindly, referring to his troubled past, "Anyway, I suppose you're right. I am happier now that Carlee's here."

Cream giggled as Shadow ruffled her ears, smiling up at Shadow.

Carlee walked out of the closet with Vanilla again at that moment and the two watched Shadow comforting Cream. Shadow sat back on the sofa, smiling at Vanilla and Carlee. Vanilla seemed pleased with him. Shadow's smile melted into a darker look as he noticed what Carlee was wearing.

"Vanilla said that here on Mobius, most girls wear skirts or dresses like you said, Shadow," Carlee started before Shadow could interrupt, "But she also says that some girls don't wear pants, or skirts or dresses at all. So my jeans are absolutely fine."

Shadow continued to give her a thinly veiled shark-look.

"Now, Shadow, I know you are a gentleman, but a true gentleman wouldn't force his decisions on his lady." Vanilla chided, chuckling internally at the look on Shadow's face.

"His la—no, that's not what we are at all!" Shadow interjected as he realized what Vanilla had just said.

He regretted it a moment later when Carlee seemed to flinch. "I'm just taking care of her, that's all." Shadow finished, unsure of what to say.

"However I did give her a different shirt, since the other one is a bit loose on her." Vanilla continued, smiling at Carlee.

The new shirt was deep pink in color, almost but not quite red. It was a camisole with elegant lace along the edges and spaghetti-straps.

"Don't worry about the patches in her blue jeans, I think they are rather cute actually, brings out her nature a bit."

Carlee looked at Vanilla and raised a brow at this, wondering what the rabbit meant.

"You seem like a playful person, dear, that's all." Vanilla beamed at Carlee with silent laughter sparkling in her eyes.

The predacious look in Shadow's eyes settled back into a calmer one at Vanilla's explanation. Though she wasn't in a dress or wearing a skirt, the camisole changed her look entirely. It showed her curves without cutting into her skin like the dress from before had, and paired with the bell-bottomed jeans it showed that she had a figure like an hourglass. That particular shade of pink was a good color on her too, and its elegant trim, coupled with the playfully ruffled patches sewn on the jeans, fit her personality well from what he'd seen of it already—sassy with a sense of humor.

"I guess it's all right." He said gruffly, trying to save face.

Vanilla wasn't fooled. She smiled warmly at him, ever full of cheer. Carlee seemed wary though, and Shadow decided to let her stay unnerved for a while after this stunt. He kept his face expressionless (an easy thing to do, not having had much to be joyous for, for years) as he inwardly laughed at the uncertainty in Carlee's eyes.

"Well, we're going to have to be on our way again." Shadow said, nodding to Vanilla and Cream.

"Wouldn't you like to stay for cookies? They'll be done soon." Vanilla offered.

"We really must be going." Shadow said before Carlee could accept the offer. She wasn't getting off with this so easily. Besides, what was so important about those pants anyway? "But thank you. We'll stop by again sometime."

"Okay dears. We hope to see you again soon! Feel free to drop by any time." Vanilla said, walking to the door with Carlee.

Shadow stepped outside first, waiting for Carlee to follow. Carlee hugged Cream and thanked Vanilla for the nice shirt, then reluctantly stepped out the door.

The two walked down the road by Vanilla and Cream's house until the little cottage was out of sight.

"So…what's so great about those pants that you'd pick them over the thousands of nice skirts that Vanilla has in her closets?" Shadow asked, looking up at Carlee.

"Well…" Carlee said, "For starters, none of them had pockets. And if I don't have pockets, where am I supposed to store my can of mace?"

Shadow slapped his forehead in disgust.

_Author's Notes:_

_Sorry I didn't update last Friday, I had a friend over. As for yesterday I got so caught up in stuff that I simply forgot! I was writing a script for episode one of "JungleDyret Hugo" the series. I'm in a dubbing team on youtube that's going to be the first to dub the series in English! If you'd like to check it out just mail me, I voice the fox Rita in the episodes and will be happy to send you a preview of what it'll look like/sound like!_

_I'll make up for missing the past couple Fridays this Tuesday and Friday even if it killz meh! Sorry, loyal reviewers ((if you haven't reviewed yet, please do so, by the way…I appreciate feedback.))_

_Lolz_

_In the original Of Shapeshifters and Violets, Carlee wore a pink ruffled skirt with a green tank top after going through this chapter. The tank top had a unicorn on it. But my tastes have changed since I was fourteen; again I own the clothing that I've designed this character to have ;D And besides that I decided I don't want her to wear a skirt this time. So there. Sorry people who love Carlee-in-a-skirt. Learn to love rough-and-tumble-patched-jeans-Carlee. With her marvelous pockets of many wonders. Because if she were able to pull random junk out of a skirt she didn't previously own, you'd all pelt me with questions of where the junk came from, and why would Vanilla have tennis racket in her pocket when she doesn't play tennis, and blah blah blah whereas with the *magic jeans* you guys are forced to automatically assume that Carlee has had this crap stuffed in those pockets for years! MWAHAHAHAHA! *cough*_


	10. A Shared Dream

**Chapter Ten: A Shared Dream**

Violet woke up to the sound of metal pots and pans banging together in the kitchen.

The couch was much too small for her; her legs draped over the arm on one side and her head was propped against the other arm of the couch in a way that gave her a stiff neck. For modesty's sake she'd slept in her clothes the night before, as Tails didn't own any clothing aside from his shoes and socks(not that his clothes would've fit her if he had). She had draped the silk dragon bathrobe over the back of the couch, unsure what to do with it because of the grass stains and glad that she was wearing normal clothes underneath. She had let her hair down the night before and taken the rubber band out (along with a few hairs), stuffing it in her pocket in case she needed it later. She tried to put the chopsticks that had been in her hair into her pocket as well, but couldn't seem to get them to fit in like they had in Carlee's pockets. That girl was freaking MAGICAL or something. Violet missed her…

Tails did indeed have a plane, and it had taken Violet all the courage she posessed to climb in with an eight-year-old in the pilot's seat. She'd never particularly liked heights in the first place, and she'd never been in a plane before, but once they had risen into the air she realized how magical flying could be. She'd never seen such beautiful terrain in her life, and to see it from above gave her a giddy yet powerful feeling. Everything looked so small from up high in the sky; she had a weird protective feeling for the plantain below. It also felt like there were no restrictions, up here in the air; even gravity couldn't keep her down on the ground. And Tails turned out to be an excellent pilot; he even instructed her on how some of the gears worked, such as the pressure gauge and the functions of different buttons in the device. Later, he revealed to her that he had built the thing! Violet was amazed.

When they'd gotten back to his workshop it was almost dark; apparently Tails had been traveling far that day, searching for something, though he didn't specify what. When he happened to see a something strange lying next to the riverbank he decided to investigate it instead, finding Violet by chance. Immediately he decided to take her back to his workshop rather than continue his quest; according to him, humans were something of a rarity on this planet, so he wanted to learn as much as he could from her.

Violet had been worried that the food on this planet would be different and repulsive, but when Tails brought out a box of cold pizza from his refrigerator she relaxed. Apparently food here was the same as food back on earth, somehow! What luck!

Tails's bed was much too small for Violet to fit in however, though he attempted to give her the bed while he slept on the floor, so she ended up on the couch which was a little bigger. The workshop house had high ceilings, but the furniture was (for the most part) Tails-size.

Violet thought it was cute, but it didn't help her sore neck much that morning. She walked blearily into the kitchen to see Tails stirring something in a metal bowl with a whisk.

"Good morning, Tails." She yawned, walking up to him.

"Good morning Violet!" Tails said, seeming bright and cheery.

Violet stared at the mixture Tails was stirring in the bowl. "What're you doing?" She asked, still only half awake.

"I thought I'd make pancakes for breakfast. I didn't have much time to cook last night, but I had the leftover pizza for us to eat which was good. I prefer to make my own meals though, that was just a leftover treat from the other day." Tails said happily, concentrating on his task.

A fox that built airplanes and cooked pancakes. Huh. A sudden thought struck Violet.

"Where are your parents?" She asked suddenly. She hadn't seen any sign of an adult anywhere in this place, and at eight years old Tails was obviously still a child.

"I…don't know." Tails said, a slightly depressed tone slipping into his voice, "I've wondered about that myself for years. I've been on my own for as long as I can remember…"

_Oh, crud…_ Violet felt bad for bringing it up, now. "I'm sorry…"

"Don't be, it's all right." Tails shrugged, stirring the pancake mix, "I never knew them so I can't really miss them. Besides, I have Sonic and my other friends to support me. They're family to me, and I can take care of myself, so I'm happy."

Violet still felt bad. To have grown up without parents…she couldn't even imagine it. No wonder he was so independent. She watched him stop whisking the pancake mix and pour it onto a pan on the stove to begin cooking the batter. Her first impression of him was wrong—he wasn't just some typical, dumb kid; he was a mature functioning adult at only eight years of age.

"If you want, you can sit down. The pancakes'll be done in a minute or two." Tails flipped over a flapjack as he spoke, smiling as it flopped perfectly back down onto the pan.

"Sure thing." Violet mumbled, feeling awkward. She sat on a wooden chair that seemed to be about her size, unlike the couch. She noticed a bunch of spare parts strewn across the table top, attracting her interest. "What are these?" She asked.

Tails looked back, eyes full of innocent surprise. "Oh, sorry. I've been working on fixing some old walkie talkies so I can communicate with Sonic while we're out on a mission, but I haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with them in the first place. I'm not really used to having many people over, so I haven't cleaned the table off since then. Just brush them to the side and I'll work on them later." He turned his attention back to the flapjacks as Violet leaned over the table to poke at the nuts and bolts on the table top.

Two minutes later he flipped the last pancake onto a plate and happily turned with two plates of flapjacks in hand to see Violet busily rewiring the insides of the walky talkies.

"Hey! Be careful with—" He started, but Violet spliced two differently-colored wires together and then happily slapped the back cover on the walky talkie.

"Hello?" She spoke into it, pressing the button on it.

"Hello?" The second walky talkie echoed a moment later.

Tails nearly dropped the pancakes on the floor. He managed to keep a grip on them and quickly came over to the table, putting the plates down on the table and staring at Violet. "How did you—"

"I've always been interested in mechanics. My dad's a technician. He used to let me watch him repair things when I was little." Violet said with a slight smile which melted off her face as she continued, "Of course, mom thinks that mechanics are a male thing and that I have no future in it. She wants me to be a business executive or a lawyer and makes me take the hardest classes the school can offer. I take a mechanics class for one of my electives though, because she at least lets me choose my optional courses." Violet half-smiled at Tails, a wary look in her eyes.

"You should do what you want to do." Tails said, sliding a plate of pancakes over to Violet, "It's your life. You should do what makes you happy. Don't let someone decide your future for you. They're not always going to be there—you are. Just because someone thinks you'd be better doing one thing doesn't mean you have to do it. There's always another option."

Violet cut her stack of pancakes into a grid of pieces, then popped a piece into her mouth, thinking over Tails's statement as she chewed.

"I guess you're right." Violet said. She looked at Tails, who was eating his pancakes with a determined look in his eyes. "…How'd you get into mechanics?" She asked, sliding a walky talkie across the table to him.

Tails caught the walky talkie and smiled a little as he looked down at it. Looking up into Violet's eyes, he said, "I just had a knack for it. I like creating things, inventing things to make people's lives easier. To make my life easier…"

Violet nodded, pouring some syrup onto her pancakes.

"But nobody wanted me to…they said I was stupid for it. They'd bully me and steal my machines, even the simplest of them, and smash them to bits…" Tails clenched his fingers around his fork, almost growling at the memory.

Violet's eyes widened as she listened to Tails. She kept eating.

"After a while I felt like giving up. No matter what I made, it'd only get destroyed…and that's when Sonic found me." Tails's death-grip on the fork relaxed and he smiled slightly, looking up at Violet and scratching his head behind his ear with his free hand. "I was about four years old at the time. I was standing on the edge of a cliff, trying to work up the nerve to drop all of the tools I'd made into the deep pool of water below. But I couldn't seem to let go somehow…every time I got close to tossing it over the edge of the waterfall, I stopped. That's when he came…"

_It's just a stupid toolbox really. Not a very well-made one, either. And it's not like as if the tools are all that great anyway…_

_My arms trembled as I held out the little wooden box over the edge of the craggy cliff, staring out at the sunset in the distance._

_This is stupid. I'm never going to get anywhere in life with this. The others are right! It's not like I could ever invent something as amazing as the light bulb or the radio; I might as well give up while I'm ahead._

_So why won't my fingers let go of the box…?_

"_Hey."_

_I jumped at the voice and the tools shifted in the box. I clutched them tightly to my chest and turned around quickly, nearly falling over the edge of the cliff myself. "Leave me alone! I'm getting rid of them all right?" I yelled, blinking back tears._

_A blue hedgehog stood a short distance away from me at the edge of the trees. He wore red shoes with a single white band across the top of each, and gentlemanly white gloves. I dug my bare fingers into the wooden box, jealous._

"_Why?" He asked, one ear twitching._

_I paused for a moment, scrutinizing him. I'd never seen him around here before. Where did he come from? "Because…" All the reasons I had for throwing my tools into the abyss seemed to vanish the moment he asked the question…I sighed. "I'll never get anywhere in life with this stuff anyway." My shoulders hunched and my ears flicked down as I said it._

"_Says who?" The hedgehog asked, raising an eyebrow._

"_Everyone." I looked down, kicking a rock with my shoe. "They say inventing is stupid and that I'm wasting my time."_

_I jerked my head up as the hedgehog started walking toward me, his shoes crunching through the pebbled bank of the river leading to the waterfall. He stopped a few feet in front of me and looked down at me. He was taller than I. His forest green eyes stared deeply into my sky-blue ones. "What is your name?" He asked._

_I hugged the box to my chest, feeling claustrophobic and small. "Miles Prower…I hate it though…"_

_The hedgehog bent down on one knee and looked at me at eye level. "Miles, what do you want to do?" He asked._

"_I want to build things…" I whispered, tears welling up in my eyes._

"_Miles…it's your life. You do what you __want__ to do with it. Don't let anyone make that decision for you. If you want to invent, invent. And don't let anyone or anything stop you." The hedgehog blinked slowly at me, "Life's about taking chances. You could fail, but if it makes you happy, go for it. Life isn't just about success."_

"_Thank you…" I whispered, my eyes still filled with tears. _

_The hedgehog's gaze drifted to the ground. "You have two tails…" He murmured, staring at the fluffy orange appendages wrapped around my legs._

_My heart sank. "Y-yeah." I sniffed. Great…now he'd think I was a freak, just like the others did..._

"_That's really cool." He said._

_I pulled back, feeling self-concious. "Do you really think so?" I asked, surprised._

"_Yeah." The hedgehog said, grinning at me._

_I hesitated. "Everyone says I should only have one tail…"_

"_Miles, don't let other people's opinions make you doubt yourself." The hedgehog stood up, dusting off his knees, "After all, they say two heads are better than one; so why shouldn't that apply to tails?"_

_Tails…_

"_I…I think I like that." I thought aloud._

"_Like what?" The hedgehog asked._

"_Tails. If that were a name I'd prefer to be called that than Miles." I blushed shyly._

"_Well, I'll call you Tails then." He smiled at me, his ear twitching again._

"_What do I call you?" I asked him, realizing that I didn't even know his name._

"_I'm Sonic…" He said, giving me a thumbs-up, "Sonic the Hedgehog."_

"And that's how I got interested in mechanics. If it weren't for Sonic, I would've given up though, all because of what other people told me to do. If I'd listened to them, I'd still be an orphan fox in the jungle. Instead I've got a house with an airplane hangar, my own planes that run on forms of energy I've harnessed, and most importantly, a happy, healthy lifestyle." He winked at me, eating a last bite of pancake and licking his lips.

I leaned back against the chair, having already long finished my stack of pancakes. Incredible. He'd almost given up, and if he had he never would've gotten all that he had today. Maybe I would be as well off as he was someday, if I followed my dream of being a technician like my father.

"Thank you, Tails…" I said, blinking at him.

"No problem." Tails smiled, picking up the walky talkie, "Anyway, I should be thanking you for fixing this!"

"Oh, it was nothing." I said, mirroring his smile, "I see a machine and just can't help myself."

"Me neither." Tails beamed. He slid out of his chair. "Anyway we should get a move on. I have to wash the Tornado today as a regular cleanup. Can't have a dirty plane in the hangar!"

"Cool, sounds fun!" Violet said, sliding out of her chair as well and taking her dish over to the sink. "I've never washed a plane before. Cars, yes, but never a plane."

"I enjoy it. Routine maintenance to keep everything airship-shape." Tails grinned, piling his dishes in the sink. "We can do the dishes later though…"

Violet laughed. "I'd like to learn a little more about how you built the plane, if that's all right with you." She said, washing her hands and then drying them on a towel.

"Sure! I'd be glad to teach you!" Tails said, excited at the prospect of having someone who was actually interested in his favorite subject to teach.

"Great!" Violet cheered.

"Come on!" Tails opened a door to the side of the kitchen and went inside with Violet close behind him.

Neither of them realized how this one simple task would change their lives forever.

_Author's Notes: Oh mah fishing gawd. This was such a hard chapter to end! And yes, another twist in the story of how Sonic and Tails first met. If you notice no one has ever really agreed on where and how they met. AoSTH claimed Tails fell out of a tree onto Sonic's head after being heartlessly abandoned or something, and SonicX had bullies destroying Tails's stuff for no apparent reason other than to be jerks (Just like real life! =D *sarcasm alert*) I prefer the latter. This was originally going to be a Violet-gets-her powers chapter…but as I kept writing it turned out that no, it was a more-info about Violet and Tails chapter. Oh well. _

_This chapter may be subject to change after I get Vi's opinion. I didn't like this chapter much, but since it's about her character I figure she might have some good input for it._

_To whoever cares: My birthday is this Sunday and I'm turning 18. I will be uploading my one hundredth video to youtube on that day. If you want to see the video, please go to youtube's site and look up my username "SonicDaShapeshifter" when Sunday arrives and check back until it's uploaded. _

_Also to SG-Kai – I owe you one wish for failing to appear on messenger today after I said I thought I could make it *repeatedly headdesks* Grah! I'm sorry! I was going to get on but then I got a phone call from a guy from church and he'd fallen and needed help (He's 83 and I'm working on a children's book with him so he has my number) so I ran over there with my mom and got him bandaged up. He'd fallen in a bush outside his house and had managed to get back inside the house to call us. Then he was talking to us for like two hours or something and by the time I got back I figured you'd have given up on me by then. Sorry again! I didn't see that coming *headdesk*_

_How Wishes Work:_

_You can wish for anything, __excluding__:_

_-Things I have to buy with real-life money (I've got neopoints, I've got Gaia gold, but I haven't got away to cram my five dollar bill into the computer)_

_-Sexual Things (Though I'm certain no one I'd give a wish to would wish for something like this, it's still got to be included in the exclusion list)_

_-Private Information (ex. Phone number, Street Address, Mailbox address, etc.)_

_-Hurtful Things (in other words I can't go out and beat up or kill someone for you, nor will I hurt myself)_

_So anything you can think of (given those restrictions) and wish for, I will do everything in my power to perform. Prior wishes made:_

_ItsJustMarty on youtube — "Keep away from madaxman13"_

_N_ — "I want to see a picture of you."_

_Auramaster724 —Undecided as of yet_

_Just for a few examples. After you've made a wish, I'll try to make that wish come true. Think of me as a genie in a lamp or something. _

_To Get A Wish__ (for the people other than Kai who've read this far)_

_Pretty much you have to be important to me and have either done something really nice to me, or I've done something really cruddy to you unintentionally and I feel bad about it so this is my way of making up for it. _

_I don't give wishes out often, so if you're the receiver of one you're a very lucky person. Anyway I'll try to see you soon, Kai!_


	11. Bruises and Bitemarks

**Chapter Eleven: Bruises and Bitemarks**

Carlee felt much more at ease in her comfortable, familiar jeans. She didn't mind wearing skirts or dresses, but after being displaced in a world as strange as this one was proving to be, it was comforting to be wearing something from back home.

She wondered vaguely if she'd see her parents again. She felt a pang of loneliness at literally being the only human on the planet as she silently followed Shadow along through the forest.

Shadow peered back at her, wondering at the solemn look on her face. The girl had lapsed into silence a little while after they'd first entered the forest, and he wondered what she was thinking about that could make her so depressed.

"Hey?" He asked, feeling the need to break the silence.

The fog in Carlee's eyes seemed to clear. She blinked and looked at Shadow in confusion. "What's up?" She asked.

"Maybe you could tell me." Shadow hoisted himself up onto a large boulder on the side of the forest path, looking down at Carlee and patting a spot to his side on the boulder to beckon Carlee up. "Why so serious?"

Carlee hopped up beside him, grinning sheepishly at him. "Is it that obvious?" She asked, looking into Shadow's eyes.

"You've been as blue as that faker ever since we first stepped in here. Do you dislike trees?" He asked, confused.

Carlee chuckled. "No, it's not the trees that get me." She looked up at the sky through the branches. "I just wonder how I'm here…if I'll ever get back home."

Shadow looked away from Carlee, thinking. He wasn't so sure he wanted Carlee to go back home. "Don't you like it here?" He asked, looking back up at her, "Everything is…beautiful."

"It's not that I don't like it. You and Hazelnut and her daughter have been really nice to me."

"Vanilla."

"What? Oh, right. Anyway it's not that I don't like you guys or that I don't like the scenery, but I wonder how my parents are doing. If they miss me. And I wonder what that monster did to Violet…" Carlee looked down at the ground.

"Oh." Shadow wasn't sure what to say. _No wonder she's upset…_

"Shadow?"

Shadow looked at Carlee, who was staring intently at the back of his head. "Do your quills always glow like that?"'

Shadow reached back into his quills and pulled out of perfect, blood-red emerald buried within them. It glowed in his gloved palm like a star in the night.

"What is that?" Carlee blinked and leaned forward to look at it, enthralled with its magnificence.

"This is a Chaos Emerald. There are seven in this world, and they hold great power. I used this earlier to teleport us." Shadow explained, cradling it carefully in his hand, "They glow when other emeralds are nearby. Thanks for pointing that out. I'm going to do a quick sweep of the area to see where the emerald is; the way this one is glowing, it has to be very close by."

Shadow jumped up and off of the boulder, beginning to walk to the opposite side of the dirt path through the forest. The emerald seemed to grow dimmer as he approached the opposite side.

"I'll help!" Carlee hopped off of the boulder and ran over to Shadow, interested in seeing the other emerald when Shadow came upon it.

The red emerald glowed more brightly all of a sudden.

"No, stay back. Most likely it's underground and I'll have to dig." Shadow replied, watching the emerald pulse with radiance.

"Oh. Okay." Carlee retreated to the boulder once again. The emerald dimmed when she walked away.

_Wait…_ Shadow looked at Carlee, suspicious. He held out the emerald, swinging it toward Carlee and then away in his hand. The emerald glowed and dimmed as he did so. Carlee watched him, confused at the exercise.

Shadow walked over to Carlee, holding the emerald near her skin as she watched curiously. Suddenly he slammed it into her arm. The red emerald flashed with blinding color as Carlee howled in pain, clutching her arm and falling off of the boulder.

Shadow grabbed her by the neck and slammed her back into a tree, and stars danced in Carlee's eyes. "WHO ARE YOU, WHAT ARE YOU, AND WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?" He roared at her, furious.

Tears swam in Carlee's eyes, clouding her vision. She gasped for breath. "I dOn'T kNoW wHaT yOu'Re Ta-AlKiNg AbOuT." She choked out and Shadow squeezed his fingers, crushing her windpipe.

"EGGMAN! IF THIS IS ONE OF YOUR ROBOTS, YOU'RE TAKING THINGS TOO FAR!" Shadow yelled in her face, enraged, positive now that the girls eyes were colored the way they were because they were optical sensors for a camera's lense in reality and believing that Carlee was a robot transmitting imagery to a computer in Eggman's base. After all, this girl had been with him since the moment she'd fallen out of the sky—so how could she possibly have found a chaos emerald when she hadn't been out of his sight for even a single moment? It must have all been a trick designed to trick Shadow into fostering feelings for the girl like he had had for Maria. This wasn't a real human being! He was disgusted at himself for being so easily fooled.

He threw Carlee violently down to the ground. If they had been on hard pavement her skull would've made a loud, sickening cracking sound; the dirt was soft luckily, but the move still hurt her. Carlee rolled after the impact, landing hard on her side with her back turned to Shadow. She gasped for breath as Shadow started walking toward her. His arms and legs shook with rage.

Carlee rolled onto her stomach, still gasping for breath, spectrums of color dancing in her eyes. Shadow raised his foot and slammed it down onto her back as she feebly tried to rise to her hands and knees, pinning her to the ground with his foot. There was a reason he was called the Ultimate Life Form; this robot was incredibly realistic and well made, and as punishment for deceiving him Eggman would lose one of his best creations…after he had finished punishing the robot itself for carrying out Eggman's orders, as he knew from his robotic friend Omega that some robots were actually aware of what they were doing. He hoped that it felt some of the pain it had caused him, feeling like his heart had been torn from his chest and ripped to shreds.

Carlee yowled in pain as Shadow slammed his foot directly into the middle of her spine. Her eyes began to flash with color and the yowl became more feral, turning into a roar. All of a sudden, two massive, leathery wings shot out of her back and slammed into Shadow, catching the hedgehog by surprise and sending him flying off his feet to crash into a tree ten feet away.

Carlee gasped with shock, rising once again to her hands and knees and coughing hoarsely, the large wings unfolding and trailing loosely along her sides on the ground. The wings were dark green in color, with webbed membranes. Spikes rose from the top tip of each wing as well as on every finger-point in the wing. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, still feeling pain from Shadow slamming his foot into her back. When she opened them, her pupils had shrunk to slits in the middle of her rainbow eyes.

Shadow stared in stunned shock for a moment, wondering how Eggman had designed a monstrosity like that. He shook his head, shaking off pieces of bark that had wedged themselves deep into his quills, then stood up. He walked back towards Carlee, determined to destroy her and get it over with.

Tears flowed over Carlee's cheeks and dropped onto the backs of her hands, which itched. She stared at her hands as her fingernails grew into long, curved black talons and scales began rising up out of her skin.

"Sh-Shadow…"

Shadow paused for a moment when Carlee spoke his name, staring as her canine teeth elongated far over her bottom lip and she began growing in size. Carlee seemed as confused by the situation as Shadow was, and obviously she was in considerably much more pain. As spikes began to grow along her spine, Shadow realized that Eggman could never have created a robot that could perform something like this, and if he could it wouldn't take this long. Eggman typically built his robots to do one specific job, and if it really were a robot working on chaos emerald energy, then choking Carlee wouldn't have been weakened at all by his choking her and by now they would both be fighting again; not watching her lying beaten on the ground, changing into a monster before his eyes. That would be stupid. At this moment she was at her most defenseless; a true robot would've been blindly and aimlessly attacking Shadow by now. But if not Eggman, then who did she work for? Who could create such a beast as this? Was she a mutated creation like he himself was? She looked almost like she was turning into a cousin of the Biolizard.

"What's h-happening to me?" Carlee croaked as her mouth elongated into a muzzle and scales grew out of her skin.

Carlee's shirt and jeans seemed to melt into her body and change with it, becoming one with the scales that were spreading over her body like wildfire. She flexed her hands and scales erupted over them, changing them completely into clawed paws. Her legs shifted backwards, inverting at the knees as scales flowed over them. A large spike grew out from each of her heels and her feet shifted so that her toes were on the ground. Her toenails grew into black talons as well and green scales covered them, like dominoes falling on top of each other in rows.

Carlee screamed in pain as Shadow spin-dashed into her mid-morph, the hedgehog having decided that he didn't want to give her any more time to recover should she prove to be an enemy or decide to devour him. A lightning bolt shot out from her jaws and hit a tree, cracking it in half partly and pushing it over slightly. Her spine elongated into a tail as she fell on her side from Shadow's attack, and barbed arrowhead tip grew out from the end of it.

Shadow bounced off of Carlee after hitting her and ricocheted into the air. He thrust the red chaos emerald into the air and prepared to attack again, shouting, "CHAOS SPEAR!"

Thousands of tiny light beams appeared and hurtled toward Carlee, like tiny needles of electric pain.

On pure instinct Carlee ducked her head and her wings snapped open to cover her it, shielding her from the rain of stinging chaos energy. An unintended side effect caused the needles to actually bounce back off of her wings and into Shadow's body as he floated in the air with the help of his hovershoes. Shadow flinched as the pin-needles shot into his skin. He flew back through the air a few feet and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, gritting his teeth to withstand the pain of his rebounded attack. He landed on a tree branch and crouched down, clinging onto it with one hand.

When he opened his eyes, Carlee was peeking up at him through her wings with her eyes wide open, shocked at what had happened as much as he was. Shadow glared at her, standing up with his spine erect, above her in the air.

"I don't know what you are," He called down to her, trying to pin her to the ground with the force of his stare, "But this can end only one way."

"You should know," Carlee spat back at him, glaring back at him with twice the force and standing up with her wings outstretched, "Why are you attacking me and how did you turn me into this? Is this what the Chaos emeralds do?"

She blamed him for her transformation into a dragon?

"What are you talking about?" Shadow yelled at her, "I didn't do anything to you!"

"YOU SLAMMED YOUR FREAKIN' FOOT IN MY BACK AND ALL OF A SUDDEN I'M SPROUTING SCALES? THAT'S A BIT TOO MUCH OF A COINCIDENCE TO ME!" Carlee roared at him, fire erupting from her mouth in response to her rage and catching a tree on fire. "Oh frick!" She said as she noticed the flaming tree. She tried to blow on it to put the fire out, and ice crystals blew from her lips—freezing the tree instead. "Dangit!" She stomped her foot on the ground and it rumbled slightly. "ARRRRRGH!" Carlee roared at Shadow, who watched the proceedings with dumbstruck eyes from the sky, "CHANGE ME BAAAAAAAAACK!"

"I didn't change you in the first place!" Shadow back flipped onto a tree branch and looked down at her.

Carlee squeezed her eyes shut and sat back on her heels, curling her tail around herself and digging her claws into her face. She scratched at the scales as though if she pulled them off she would find herself human again beneath them.

"Hey—quit that! What are you trying to do, hurt yourself?" Shadow snapped at her without thinking.

Carlee snorted and opened her eyes to glare up at Shadow between clawed fingers. "Why do you care? You want to kill me anyway! Why shouldn't I go ahead and do it myself and save you the trouble?" She scratched a talon down her cheek to elaborate, a screech like nails on a chalkboard resulting from the action.

"I said quit it!" Shadow leapt at her from the tree, slamming into her chest before she could react and knocking her over.

Carlee fell backwards into a tree and then onto the ground, stars dancing in her eyes as her head knocked into the boulder. Her jaws flew open and she breathed out ice crystals, making Shadow shiver and tiny ice particles gather on his quills.

Once on her back it was difficult for Carlee to roll over and get up, as her wings kept her from rolling over easily. With Shadow on her chest, it was even more impossible. Shadow grabbed her wrists to keep her from slashing at him or further attempting to mutilate herself and leaned over her face to speak.

Before he could, the scales erupted in fur beneath his hands and the claws turned from black to white. Within seconds Carlee had changed from a dragon into a lioness, somehow. She kicked her hind feet into his legs and they both flipped over, with Carlee on top of Shadow this time. With her teeth bared, Carlee leaned into Shadow's face and growled, "Change. Me. BACK."

Shadow stared at Carlee in confusion and then poked at her neck. "Uh…Carlee?" He murmured, blinking, "In case you haven't noticed…"

Carlee leaned closer into Shadow's face, staring into his eyes. Reflections of a sandy-furred lioness stared searchingly back into her own. She gasped and backed off of Shadow, sitting back on her haunches and drawing herself up in the air to look down upon herself. Shadow sat up and looked at her, watching her closely.

"You don't work for anyone, do you…" He said, still uncertain.

Carlee looked at him, eyes pulsing with color. "Who would I be working for? Who is that Egg-seller you were screaming in my face about?" She fell back to four paws on the ground, raising her hind quarters into the air. Her claws unsheathed and her tail snapped back and forth like a whip as she bared her teeth at Shadow again. Her eyes challenged him to try yelling in her face again.

"He doesn't sell eggs, he's just incredibly fat and shaped like one." Shadow stayed sitting on the ground, raising his hands with his palms toward her in an effort to calm her down by showing her he meant no more harm. "He's the only human on this planet—other than you."

"There's another human?" Carlee straightened up again, a mixture of shock and confusion crossing her face. She began shapeshifting again as she spoke. "Why didn't you tell me?" She said, sounding hurt.

Shadow watched with relief as the massive, threatening jungle feline melted back into a softer, fair-skinned human girl. "You don't want to get involved with him. He's fat, bald guy who's always scheming to take over the world."

"…Then he sounds kind of like a guy in an old legend in my world. The legend of the mustached man." Carlee mused. She crossed her arms as she watched Shadow, then glanced back down at herself in confusion as she realized she was back in human form. She sighed with relief and rubbed her temples as if to comfort a headache.

"Legend?" Shadow asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"I'm a bit of a history buff." Carlee admitted, shrugging, "I know all the old town legends. The mustached man and his deal with the creature of darkness…some dumb mentioning of rocks with great powers…a girl and a beast-creature. That one's my favorite actually. I'd tell you about it but you're going to kill me anyway so just get it over with and I won't bother you anymore." Carlee glared at Shadow, her eyes starting to pulse with color once again.

"Wait, wait." Shadow said, a strange feeling overtaking him. He started to move toward Carlee but stopped when she flinched. "I'm not going to kill you," He said, regretting his reaction to the chaos emerald glowing near Carlee. It had been a long time since he'd trusted anyone; he was always waiting for the day when the other person would betray him. He didn't have many friends because of this. "I'm…sorry."

Carlee looked at him, confused at hearing him apologize. She hadn't expected him to.

"I was wrong to attack you. I should've just asked you first. But when the Chaos emerald reacted so close to you my anger got the better of me." Shadow looked to the side, frowning. "I just couldn't stand the thought of you betraying me…you're too much like…someone I used to know."

Carlee's eyes stopped flashing and she settled down, relaxing slightly. "Who?" She asked.

"Just…a friend." Shadow looked into Carlee's eyes, then had to look away again. "A human girl. She sacrificed herself to save my life, and I didn't even hear her last wish…"

"That's…a lot like my favorite legend." Carlee murmured, uncrossing her arms and wrapping them around her knees.

Shadow looked at her, wondering what she meant.

"Once upon a time in space, there was a very sick girl. She had a bad disease that meant she couldn't go outside. She lived with her grandfather and her best friend was a cat-like creature who could stand on two legs." She paused. "How ironic is that? All the old legends involve anthropomorphic creatures and now I'm in a world full of them where humans are the stuff of legend."

The hair on the back of Shadow's neck rose as he listened. "What happened to them?" He asked, his voice deepening further with his dread.

"Something happened and enemies got into their space home. They captured her grandfather and the cat-creature tried to save the girl. They got to an escape hatch to a space-pod of some sort and the girl pushed the cat-creature in. She pulled a lever or pressed a button or something and launched the cat into space, because apparently she couldn't do that inside the pod which is pretty stupid, if her grandpa was smart enough to build a space station he should've been smart enough to build an eject button into the escape-pod-thing itself so that they all could've escaped without needing someone to stay behind." Carlee rolled her eyes dismissively.

Shadow leapt upon her, grabbing her tightly by the shoulders and pinning her to the ground beneath him in a lightning fast move. "_WHY?_" He asked desperately.

Claws began growing out of Carlee's fingertips again and Shadow realized what he'd done. He quickly backed off of her and retreated to the other side of the path, holding his hand to his forehead. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry…"

The claws changed back to fingernails as Carlee sat up again, hugging her knees tightly. She looked at Shadow warily. "No, it's my fault this time. I shouldn't have bored you with all this old folklore anyway. I'm the only one in town interested in it, anyway."

"NO—no, that's not it at all…"Shadow rubbed his head, sighing. "Just...please…why did the girl do it? Why did she sacrifice herself?"

"Well…when you love something that much, you take care of it. If you love someone that much and the choice is to die with them or sacrifice yourself, you sacrifice yourself." Carlee shrugged, looking at the ground. "That's kind of my philosophy in life. As long as I have someone to protect, I'll give everything I have to keep them safe and happy. But right now I've lost everyone I've ever known…I failed to keep Violet safe from that monster, recklessly put her in danger by letting her accompany me into the haunted house. I was selfish, and now I'm paying for it…" Her shoulders slumped and she rested her forehead on her knees. "Now you know why I keep telling you to just kill me quickly and get it over with. Violet's probably dead, and if not then she's cold, alone, and afraid for her life most likely… I don't deserve to live…it's all my fault…" Carlee groaned forlornly.

Shadow slumped against a tree, stunned. _Love…_He thought, staring into nothingness, _She didn't send me here to seek revenge…She sent me here to keep me safe…She sent me here when she could've had me press the button to send her instead…She wanted to see the world so badly, but she sent me in her place out of love…_

"Carlee…"

Carlee flinched as she felt Shadow place his hand on her head.

"If there was ever a person who deserved to live, it is you…"

He slowly trailed his fingers through her hair, then turned, walking away.

"Where are you going?" Carlee lifted her head, watching Shadow walking off the path and into the woods.

Shadow turned his head to look back at her. He smiled slightly. "I'm…going to take a walk. I have to clear my head a bit. Practice that shapeshifting skill you have there. Maybe it'll come in handy." He started to walk away again, facing forward again.

"Shadow?"

Shadow stopped in his tracks, but didn't look back this time. "Yes?" He asked in a voice smooth as silk.

"…Are you coming back?"

In a gust of wind Shadow was on one knee in front of her again. He cupped her chin with one hand and looked into her eyes. "Well, if I leave you alone for too long, who knows what kind of trouble you'll get into?" He smiled as Carlee pulled away from his hand in disgust. "Try not to destroy the forest while I'm gone. And I'll expect you to be here when I'm back; otherwise we're going back to Vanilla's for a dress."

Carlee stuck out her tongue at him in response, but already Shadow was gone. A low chuckle echoed through the trees, the only indication of his presence there.

_Author's Notes: Ergh, longest chapter in the history of history. I got mad at it in the middle of it and deleted a page and rewrote it, so this might've turned out a little differently. As you'll notice there are a few changes from last time, if you're a returning reader of the story, and I couldn't help using the "Why so serious?" quote from Batman. Heith Ledger, you will be missed. _

_Please review. I need more reviews for this Lol. Don't read and just go, there's no point to me writing this if I don't get some feedback on it so I can improve my writing skills._

_I couldn't think of a good title for this chapter. The original, if I remember correctly, was titled "The First Fight" but that didn't sound cool enough so I had to resort to song titles. Even if no one was bruised or bitten. I thought about having something about dragons in the title but thought it'd be too revealing for what happened in the chapter, and I wanted the newer readers to be surprised. Tell me if you were! ;D_

_Review Responses: ((OMG NEW SECTION OF AUTHOR'S NOTEZ!1!))_

_Kai - You're awesome because you're the first one to ever turn down a wish. If you ever do decide you want it though you've still got it =)_

_Reed Raze Gale – Well, I don't think anyone would wish for me to lift a monster truck above my head with my pinky, so I figured that's a given that no one would wish for something stupid like that xD Ya know?_


	12. Before the Storm

**Chapter Twelve: Before the Storm**

"Don't forget to get soap in around the base of the wing, there, Violet!" Tails called down to the girl from his place in the cockpit.

"Got it!" Violet called back, "How's it coming along in the pilot's seat?"

"I have to clean the internal compass and wipe down the controls, and then it'll be all set!"

"Great!" Violet swept the sponge across the painted blue plane's wing, scrubbing it relentlessly. She'd never been this close to an aircraft in her life—not counting when she'd flown in it yesterday with Tails after he'd found her in that meadow. Cleaning it was fun and interesting in a way that washing a car wasn't, because it was such a new and different experience. Then again, giving that she was in a new and different world, she supposed such experiences had to be!

Moreover she discovered she liked the feeling of the sudsy water trickling through her fingers as she squeezed the sponge. Though she never enjoyed washing dishes at home, she found that it now felt soothing to have the soapy water wrap around her hand as she dipped it in the bucket.

She soon was running out of water to dip the sponge in, however.

"Where's the water spigot again, Tails?" Violet asked, holding the empty bucket upside down for inspection.

"There's the sink in the kitchen, but the hose outside is closer. Go out the side door over there and it should be right outside the door." Tails pointed out the direction of the door to Violet as he carefully cleaned off the temperature gauge in the control panel of the plane.

"Okay!" Violet turned the bucket right-side-up and took it by the handle, leaving the sponge on the wing of the airplane and walking over to the door.

She opened and closed the door behind her, then looked down to her right to see a hose coiled beside the steps. She took the nozzle and dropped it into the bucket, then turned the knob to let water run into it.

She watched water trickle into the bucket for a moment, then turned her gaze up to the sky. It looked like a storm was coming. Clouds were moving in from the ocean in gray, huddling droves. The sun shone brightly from the east however, in direct contrast to the gloomy skies from the west. Tails's home was in a beautiful location. His workshop was located on a small cliff overlooking the ocean, with a tiny bluff below. At the moment it was just a plain, grassy field; when they'd first flown in, however, Tails had revealed he owned all of the land on the mountaintop, and that one day he wanted to develop that land and build another airplane hangar or workshop.

A pity.

It would be a nice field for flowers to grow in…

Violet blinked at the sky, watching as the clouds quickly moved closer. When she was a child she used to pretend she could control the rain's fall…if she raised a hand in protest, the rain would fall softer, or stop; if she brought her hands crashing down in a swiping motion, the rain would fall harder. When she grew older she also grew out of those fantasies, though…

Still, she had the oddest feeling…

_Eh, why not? No one's gonna see anyway…why not do it one last time, for old time's sake?_ She thought to herself, smiling halfway in embarrassment. She raised a hand and brought it crashing down as she watched the clouds. A splashing sound to the right caught her attention and she looked down to see the bucket was about to overflow.

"Crud!" She quickly shut the water off and jumped up, patting her jeans to get any dust or dirt off from when she had been sitting on the doorstep. She picked up the bucket and quickly hurried back inside, shutting the door behind herself.

She didn't notice the rain beginning to pour over the forest in the near distance.

**Pagebreak**

"Did you see that, my boy?"

"Yes sir." Ash frowned, watching Violet hurry back into the house. As he had watched, she raised her hand and the water in the bucket rose into the air…and when she swept her hand downward, the water sloshed back into the bucket. And it began raining on his parade, quite literally.

Ash growled his displeasure under his breath as raindrops pelted him through the tree branches.

He and Dr. Robotnik had been staking out this workshop all morning. The man had explained that his instincts were leading him here, and also that the cystal ball in his scepter did not lie. At present, a blue symbol was glowing brightly inside the orb, along with a blackened red one and a blackened dark blue one. The sky-blue one seemed to be pressed against the side of the ball in the direction of the house, indicating the presence of an empowered person inside.

"Tell me why she has to be here, again?" Ash scowled at the quaint little workshop, still feeling that it was Violet's fault he had been sent here at all.

"In order to bring peace to this world, it is necessary to acquire the partnership of each elemental. Once all seven are brought together, their powers, united, will ensure ultimate peace for the realm…with me as the ruler." Dr. Robotnik responded, his opaque blue glasses catching the light as lightning flashed.

"Right." Ash watched the workshop impatiently, miserable in the pouring rain. "So she's water and I'm fire. What's Carlee going to be and when are we going to find her?"

"Patience, my boy. We can only find out the powers of the people through observation. With the way it's going so far, I'm guessing she will be either an elemental of air or earth."

"Patience…" Ash grumbled, glaring through the binoculars at the door Violet had entered, "Why can't we just run in there and get things done already?"

"We don't want to alert the fox. He's in league with a blue hedgehog who aims to engulf the planet in chaos for years to come. If we simply run in and rescue the girl, then he will be left behind to report back and it is imperative that that does not happen."

"So why don't we just bring him, too?"

"The hedgehog would soon discover his disappearance and investigate."

Ash fell silent, his displeasure showing plainly in his face. "Why can't we just find Carlee first? Violet's obviously not coming out for a while yet."

The door swung open while Ash spoke, and the girl walked out with the two-tailed fox behind her. The two began clambering down the mountain path to the ground below.

"There, now. This is the chance we've been waiting for. Let's go." Dr. Robotnik stood up from his seat on the log and cocked his gun.

"Do we have to shoot her? I mean…shouldn't we just talk to her first?" Ash suggested. He felt angry at Violet, for sure, but he didn't necessarily want to shoot her…even if it was just a tranquilizer.

"We'll try it your way first, of course. It'd be better for her to come willingly. This is just a backup plan…just in case."

Ash looked down for a moment, contemplating the man's words. "I guess that's all right, then…" He finally muttered, not meeting Dr. Robotnik's gaze.

"That's a good lad."

**Pagebreak**

"So what you're saying is, we're going to go as far apart as we can to see how far the walky talkies will transmit as a test."

"Right!" Tails grinned, his bushy tails wagging in excitement."

Violet looked doubtfully at the rain pouring over the forest. She raised a hand up in an instinctive gesture, wishing that she could stop it from falling like she pretended she could as a child.

"What are you doing?" Tails asked curiously, cocking his head slightly to the side as he watched her.

"Uh…nothing!" Violet pulled her hand back, then rummaged into her pocket for the walky-talkie. Unlike Carlee, her pockets were finite, and the bulky walky talkie jutted out of it partly. She pulled it out and pressed the button on it. "All right, let's do this!"

Tails grinned again as Violet's voice echoed out of his walky-talkie. "I'll never get over how you fixed it so quickly!"

"Ah, it's not that big a deal." Violet blushed slightly at the praise, "Let's just head out."

"You head down by the ocean, I'll head down toward the caves!" Tails waved to Violet and then ran off, jumping over the hillside and completely ignoring the architecturally designed stone stairs in his excitement.

Violet smiled slightly at the joyful look on the fox's face. She walked down the stairs and headed along the beach, pressing the button on the device in her hands to keep in touch with Tails as they tracked each other's distance to determine the transmitting range the two walky-talkies .

There was a long drop from the Cliffside to the ocean below. Violet stared over the edge at the wide, blue sea. The sun was up higher than it had been before; it was almost midday now, and it cast its rays to sparkle across the waves of the cobalt blue ocean. Violet leaned over the railing, resting her elbows on the "DO NOT CROSS" sign as she relaxed and took in the scenery.

"Violet? …Violet, can you hear me?" Tails's voice rang out of the transmitter, which Vi had shoved back into her pocket.

Violet sighed and pulled it back out, still leaning over the railing. "Yes, I can hear—"

"Talking to yourself? People are going to start calling you crazy." A voice interrupted from her from behind.

Violet gasped and spun around to see Ash standing right behind her, towering over her.

"A-Ash?" She stammered, looking up at him.

"The one and only." He looked down at her and smiled slightly.

"I can't believe you're here! How did you get here?" Violet grinned widely in excitement at seeing another human. Then she paused, remembering that he hadn't been with her and Carlee when they'd been attacked by that creature. "How DID you get here?" She asked in confusion, the smile fading from her face as she looked up into his eyes.

"I ran into the house when I heard Carlee scream. There was a creature up in the attack. He attacked me and I woke up here…"

Ash was interrupted by a frantic transmission from the walky-talkie. "Violet? Are you all right? I thought I heard another voice! Are you okay?"

Ash's eyes flashed and he snatched the walky-talkie out of Violet's hand. "She's busy right now." He said into it, punching the button on the device. Then he crushed it, his hand lighting on fire.

Violet yelped in surprise at the spontaneous combustion and jolted backwards, falling against the old fence and breaking through it. Ash grabbed her wrist with his normal hand and pulled her back up. "Careful now." He warned.

"Ash! Your hand—"

"Yes, it's on fire. I can control it. I'm an elemental, you see." Ash said, stepping back a few feet once he was certain Violet wasn't going to fall again. He raised his hands to the air and blasted some fireballs into the sky from his palms as a demonstration. "And you are too. You control water." He explained.

"M-me? Control water? What are you talking about?" Violet stepped back and her heel hit the fence. Remembering how she had almost plummeted to her death moments before, she scuttled away from the edge and around to the side of Ash, keeping him a safe distance away from herself.

"I saw you raise water from a bucket earlier, and you caused the clouds above us to start and stop pouring down rain." Ash gestured to the clouds, which were indeed no longer pouring.

"No I didn't!" Violet said, shaking her head, "I've never been able to control water."

"Yes, you can." Ash said, trying to calm her down, "Listen; I met a man here when I woke up. His name is Dr. Robotnik and he can help you figure out how to use your powers…" He started, but Violet tuned out as soon as he said he'd met a man…

"_Humans haven't been seen around here in years! …Well, except one, but he doesn't count 'cause he's a tyrant."_

"The tyrant?" Violet yelped to Ash's surprise, "Are you kidding me! I was found by a two-tailed fox, and he said that the only human he's ever seen on this planet is a big fat tyrant with a bushy mustache who wants to take over—"

Suddenly Violet was hit in the arm with something sharp. She yelped again and clutched at her arm, pulling away a tranquilizer dart. "Wha-what?" was all she had time to say before she collapsed upon the ground.

Ash ran over and fell to his knees beside her, pushing her over onto her back and brushing the hair off her face. "Was that really necessary?" He snapped at Dr. Robotnik as the corpulent man stepped out from the trees.

"She was being difficult. And she was going to run." Dr. Robotnik replied, lowering the gun, "You said she was annoying, but less spirited than Carlee. If Carlee proves to be this difficult we're going to have to shoot her as well."

Ash glared at him. "If Carlee has to be shot, _I'll_ be the one to shoot her, okay? But seriously you didn't need to do this, if you'd just given me another minute I could've explained about you and your plans for world peace here and then she would've come with us willingly instead of unconsciously!"

"Alas, even someone as perfect as I can make mistakes." Dr. Robotnik replied dismissively, turning away. "Pick her up. We'll bring her to the ship and put her in an air conditioned room for the time being."

Ash stood up and slung Violet over his shoulder, grumbling under his breath.

"And Ash…"

Ash looked over at Dr. Robotnik to see the man looking over his shoulder at him.

The dark blue glasses seemed to flash. "After we get Violet settled, we can go and find your girlfriend."

Ash brightened up slightly, still aggravated at the unnecessarily tranquilizing of Violet but pleased about seeing Carlee again. He ran to catch up with the man, Violet flopping on his shoulder.

The half melted walky-talkie lay in a heap on the grass by the broken fence, never to transmit again.

_Author's notes:_

_Finally, a chapter I'm pleased with after a short string of ones I hated writing! Looks like things are about to get interesting…_

_Edit: I wasn't able to post this Friday like I was supposed to, so I'm uploading it Tuesday instead. Whenever I miss a Friday, expect to see the chapter Tuesday instead, and if you guys heckle me enough I'll post a bonus chapter. So far you guys seem pretty calm about whether I post or not so I figure I'll keep to my schedule but modify it a bit. This should work out better than in the past._

_Also, don't forget to review! Thanks._


	13. Hunted

**Chapter Thirteen: Hunted **

Shadow had been gone a long time…

Carlee lay back on the boulder, crossing her arms behind her head and staring up at the sky through the branches of the leafy trees. The sun was almost directly overhead, soft light trickling through the leaves like strands of silk, weaving and entwining around each curving leaf.

_I wonder…if he really is going to come back…_

Despite his general aggressiveness and pushy demeanor, Shadow wasn't a bad person. Hedgehog. Whatever he was. He just wanted her to look nice and be happy. For some reason or another he'd formed some sort of attachment to Carlee, and though she hadn't realized it until he was gone, she was pretty fond of him, too. Not to mention, he was the only person she knew in this world…without him she felt…lonely.

A leaf fluttered down from the branches and landed on her mouth. She blew out a puff of air and the leaf was swept up and away, to fall to the side of the boulder. She wondered if fall was starting here. It was odd to be in such a summery setting after previously being in autumnal Etherwurld Town. She was glad to be wearing the sleeveless camisole instead of her old, splotchy tie-dye shirt. At least stopping by Hazelnut's place hadn't been a total bust.

Speaking of clothes, when she practiced changing forms, it appeared that the clothing's fibers would actually embed themselves in her skin and become part of her body when she changed. When she changed back, her clothing looked exactly the same as it had before. It was interesting…

There was a term for this, Carlee knew from the books she'd read… shape-changing…Shapeshifting! That's what it was. Transforming from one form to another was known as shapeshifting.

She'd practiced for a little while after Shadow departed; figuring out that shapeshifting was as simple as envisioning a creature in her mind and expressing the desire to be that creature. The first time she'd changed it was excruciatingly painful and it had taken a long time. The second time wasn't painful, and took maybe a tenth of the time to perform. Now she could change forms within seconds, painlessly. Carlee felt very relieved at this…but also a little wary. She wondered why she was able to do this now when she wasn't able to back in her home world. Why now, why here...and why her?

Carlee groaned, closing her eyes and dragging her fingernails across her scalp as she thought of her family and friends. It was too quiet in the forest…She needed noise, warmth, people around her.

"If only the others were here…" She sighed.

"Aww, all you had to do was call me if you wanted company."

Carlee's eyes snapped open and she jumped at the sudden voice, falling off of the boulder and landing hard on her side in the dirt and twigs on the ground. She looked up with her jaw dropped to see Ash leaning on the boulder and looking down at her with a sly grin.

"Ash? What are you doing here?" Carlee asked, getting up and brushing herself off and staring at him, wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her.

"I could ask you the same thing. I heard you scream and I ran in the house to save you. Then this wacko monster guy threw a punch at me and I woke up on a volcano here." Ash shrugged, his grin growing wider as he watched Carlee with a keen gaze. "I like the new shirt by the way. You look very…curvy. I like that."

Carlee's cheeks burned. She turned away from him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Pervert." She muttered, scuffing a shoe on the ground.

"Is it a crime to compliment?" Ash asked, striding around the boulder to stand by Carlee. He placed a hand on her shoulder, gripping it slightly.

The world sharpened in focus, and Carlee realized her pupils had changed into slits. She focused and the world softened again as her pupils rounded. She wondered why she had started changing to dragon form without thinking…was it instinct that was driving her new ability as well as conscious thought? She looked up at Ash, beginning to ask him if he had powers as well—then stopped when she looked into his eyes.

Something had changed.

Carlee felt goosebumps rise on her arms as she looked into his eyes. She'd seen eyes like that somewhere before, very recently…She wracked her brain to try and remember as she peered into Ash's eyes like she was seeing into his soul.

The painting.

His eyes looked like the eyes of the fat man in the painting she'd seen in the house before she'd been taken to this world.

"_You know too much…You must be disposed of immediately."_ The monster had said to her, the black hedgehog with gray stripes.

"I wanted to introduce you to a new friend of mine," Ash said as Carlee stared blankly up at him, "His name is Dr. Robotnik and he found me a short time after I woke up. He's going to help me learn how to harness my powers…"

"P-powers?" Was it just her imagination, or were Ash's fingers clamping more tightly around her shoulders?

"Yes, you see, I can control fire." Ash lifted up his free hand, which immediately ignited into a fist-engulfing flame.

Carlee flinched and pulled away from him, only to discover that it wasn't her imagination working overtime—Ash's hand was possessively clamped on her shoulder, his fingers digging into the muscles of her arm.

"Ow! Let go, you're hurting me!" Carlee wrenched herself out of Ash's grip and stepped back a few paces from him, glaring at him. "What is your problem?"

"Hey, now, calm down…" Ash tried to sooth her, his flaming hand suddenly normal again. "I'm not going to hurt you. You see, I'm an elemental of fire. Ever since I got here I've been able to conjure and control flames, with my mind. Violet's here too; she can control water."

"Violet's here?" Carlee's heart skipped a beat, but she kept her face neutral as she stared in Ash's eyes, "…Where is she then?"

"As I was saying, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine," Ash started again, ignoring Carlee and gesturing to the trees behind the boulder, "His name is Dr. Robotnik and he found me after I discovered my powers. He's been here a long time, and he says he can help me use my powers to my full capabilities. Violet too."

Carlee started as a man appeared from the trees to stand by the boulder. He was of an impressive height, not to mention the size of his waist. But she had already known that from seeing his painting…

"And he can help you with your powers too."

Carlee stared blankly at Dr. Robotnik, thoughts racing through her head as she met the intense stare of the corpulent man. Then she blinked and straightened up a little bit, crossing her arms. "I don't have any powers." She said plainly.

"You don't need to be afraid of me, my dear." The man coaxed, folding his arms over his pot-bellied stomach, "There's no need to lie to me."

"I don't have any powers." Carlee repeated, holding her ground.

"Of course you have powers." Ash sighed exasperatedly, starting to walk toward her, "If I got powers upon coming here, and Violet got powers upon coming here, then of course you have powers. Quit being difficult."

Carlee struggled as her pupils attempted to change from circles to slits again. She dropped her arms to her sides and stepped back a few paces from Ash. "Don't touch me." She near-hissed at him.

Ash looked like he was about to blow up—and given what he'd shown her already, he probably could. Carlee flinched again, stepping back and into a tree.

"Calm down, Ash." Robotnik instructed, holding out a hand to calm him, "She's just afraid of you burning her, that's all. She doesn't understand yet. Perhaps she has not yet discovered what powers she possesses."

Oh, yeah. This guy was bad news. Luckily they hadn't seen her practicing. Carlee was glad she had quit earlier.

Ash stopped walking toward her and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply and then slowly exhaling. Dr. Robotnik turned back to Carlee, holding out the same hand to her as he had to Ash. He turned it palm up and crooked a finger at her, beckoning her forward.

"Come along with us now, dear. There's no need to be afraid. I can help you learn what powers you have within you, and help you harness them so we can make this world a better place…"

"That's a very generous offer, sir, but I'm afraid I have to decline." Carlee chuckled nervously, looking down at the ground. The sun had baked the dirt path to the point that it actually had cracks and flakes in it. "A friend is already helping me out and I think I hear him calling me, so I'm gonna have to go now."

Carlee quickly swept her foot through the dirt of the road, sending a cloud of dust into the air and into Ash's eyes, causing the boy to yelp in pain. She ducked around the back of the tree and took off sprinting through the forest away from the dirt path as fast as her feet could take her!

"Agh!" Ash rubbed his eyes to get the dirt out of them, blinking as his eyes watered. "Why didn't you shoot her?"

"You said earlier that if anyone was going to be shooting her, it would be you. Take the gun." Robotnik handed the tranquilizer gun to Ash, then pointed at the trees, saying, "Go quickly. She's getting away fast!"

Ash grabbed the gun and dashed into the woods after Carlee, his feet pounding the ground as he ran.

"…Oh, this is going to be far too entertaining to miss…" Robotnik smiled and pulled a remote controller from his pocket. He pressed a button and a moderately-sized hoverchair zoomed in from the trees. The man squished himself into the seat and then rose up through the air, using the remote to control it and watching the two teenagers from above.

Carlee dashed through the trees, her heart pounding as she heard Ash yelp behind her. It wouldn't be long before he recovered and she knew she didn't have much time. She'd always been a fast runner at school; she was the fastest girl on the track team. However, she'd never needed her skills to escape from a pursuer, so she hoped she'd have the stamina and speed to get out of the area before Ash caught up—as she was certain he would.

That man—Robot Rick?—was the man from the painting. Of this she was certain. Same clothing, same ugly face, same evil eyes…She was NOT going anywhere with him willingly, Ash's word or not! She hoped Violet wasn't really with them; if she were, it had to be against Violet's will, Carlee was sure. Violet was naive, but she wasn't stupid.

Carlee stumbled over a tree root and almost fell, but caught herself before she went down. She ran a few more steps and then fell against a tree, trying to catch her breath and thinking she'd run far enough to evade them.

A dart struck the tree by her hand and she jumped, falling over backwards in bewilderment.

"YOU CAN RUN AS LONG AS YOU WANT, BUT I'M NOT LETTING YOU GET AWAY THIS TIME!" Ash yelled at her as he ran through the trees.

Carlee scrambled back up and took off, diving behind another tree as a second dart missed her by a hair. Ash tripped over the root Carlee had stumbled over, and fell, crashing into the ground. A moment later the root lit on fire and was quickly reduced to ashes. Ash got back up and ran after Carlee.

_Holy crap!_ Carlee thought as she started zigzagging through the trees to make it harder for Ash to take aim at her, _He's got a tranquilizer gun! But that's what they use on wild animals, not people!_ She mentally slapped her forehead a second later, realizing that as a shapeshifter, she _was_ a wild animal—whenever she decided to be.

But she couldn't let him know that, and she could see a shadow moving on the ground behind her, cast from what she knew was the fat man, though she didn't dare risk looking up to see him. Even though her body was screaming for her to change forms and get away, she knew she couldn't without either of them seeing—and for some reason, she _knew_ it was very important that her ability remain secret.

She saw a wall of brush ahead and skidded to a stop in front of it. The large hedge bushes stretched from left to right in each direction and were quite tall.

Carlee tried to look for another escape route when she saw a streak of red out of the corner of her eye.

"GET BACK HERE!"

Carlee took a deep breath and dove through the bushes, tumbling through the flexible branches and landing on her back on the other side, her arms scratched from the thorns and her cheek scraped slightly. She scrambled to her feet once again and ran through the grassy area at the forest's edge, only to have to hit the brakes as she came to the edge of a large cliff. Sharp, pointed rocks and boulders awaited her at the bottom if she tried to jump into the ocean, and if she sprouted wings and took dragon form, she didn't know how to fly…

The wall of brush suddenly went up in flames, and Carlee spun around to see Ash standing in the entryway he'd created in the hedges. Carlee looked to her left, and then to her right; nothing but grass met her eyes…nothing to hide behind.

The tranquilizer gun hung limply in Ash's hand at his side as the boy glared at Carlee. He knew he had her trapped, and he wasn't going to make any false pretenses about it.

Carlee put one foot in front of herself and leaned back, balling her hands into fists and glaring back at Ash with false bravado. He laughed sarcastically in response.

"You can't seriously believe you can take me on. Do I need to remind you of this?" Ash asked, holding up the gun and pointing it at Carlee.

Carlee's eye twitched. She replied, "If you're going to shoot me, shoot me. Either way I'm not going to go without a fight."

"You are the most stubborn girl I've ever met in my entire life." Ash began walking toward Carlee again.

Instinctively, she stepped back, and her heel felt the hard edge of the cliff underneath her foot. A few pebbles fell over the precipice to their doom in the unforgiving ocean below.

"Running, running, running. Always running from me, always ignoring me. Well, you can't ignore me now, _CAN YOU?_" Ash yelled harshly at Carlee, making her flinch, "SO TELL ME, CARLEE, WHAT IS IT ABOUT ME THAT YOU DON'T LIKE?"

"How about your temper, for starters…" Carlee grumbled underneath her breath, then gasped and dove to the side as a lash of flame struck at her.

"I HEARD THAT!" Ash roared at her.

Carlee landed hard on her side for the third time that day. _What is this, Pick-On-Carlee day, or something?_ She asked herself as she looked up at Ash. She quickly rolled to the side as another flame smacked at the ground where she had been lying.

Ash seemed to be holding a long, thin flame which sprouted from his right hand and which he was controlling like a whip. Perspiration broke out on Carlee's forehead.

"That's another thing, you've got a smart mouth! This is a GREAT costume! Rather fitting, given my power, wouldn't you agree?" Ash mocked, smacking the flame whip on the ground in front of Carlee as she scrambled up and tried to make a run for it despite the lack of hiding places in the open field atop the cliff.

Carlee slid to a stop and slipped on the slick grass, losing her balance and falling on her back from the quick stop as the flame hit directly in front of her shoes. Ash walked closer and Carlee scrambled backwards away from him. Her fingers clamped around a rocky ledge and she looked back to see that she was on the edge of the cliff again, the sharp boulders below looking like the teeth of a ravenous sea monster as the waves crashed and broke against them. When she looked back up, Ash was standing above her, his head blocking out the sun.

"Well, just look at you now…" Ash said, standing over Carlee with the tranquilizer gun in his left hand and a ball of fire in his right, "Nowhere to run…nowhere to hide…"

Carlee quivered as she looked up into Ash's burnt-brown eyes, knowing that even shapeshifting couldn't save her now. Suddenly the boulders below seemed very inviting.

Ash trained the tranquilizer gun on Carlee's bare shoulder, watching Carlee for any sudden movements.

"W-wait!" Carlee held up her hand and turned her head away, squeezing her eyes shut.

"What." Ash said coldly, the word coming out as more of a statement than a question.

"Can I just say one last thing…?" Carlee pleaded, lowering her head and looking up at Ash fearfully.

Ash kept the gun pointed at Carlee's shoulder. "Go ahead." He said emotionlessly, staring down at Carlee like a statue.

Carlee took a deep breath, then at the top of her lungs shouted,

"_SHADOW!_"

_Author's Notes: I've been looking forward to writing this chapter for a while now ^^ So much action and epic dialogue in it. Kinda sucks to be Carlee right now though O . O; Anyway this could've been another 7 pages longer, but I decided to make those pages be in the next chapter instead, so you'll have to wait a while to read them! The original chapter had this in it and more, but when I rewrite these chapters they seem to turn out longer page-wise than the originals were, so I'm splitting up things at times as I go along. Man, looks like we're gonna have more than 51 chapters just due to rewrites! But I know you longtime reviewers don't mind reading the old chapters when the chapters are (if I may say so myself) better and more detailed than the originals. Now you know exactly what's going on in my mind as far as what's happening to the characters. Anyway, time for a teaser!_

_Looks like Carlee's stuck between a rock and a hard place—or in this case, sharp ocean boulders and an angry stalker. Will Shadow arrive in time to save her, or has Carlee run out of luck?_

_(Oldtime readers—if you spoil it for the new readers, so help me I will get yew!1!)_

_EDIT: Dangit! The last word got cut out when I first tried to upload this so I had to take this chapter down, change it, and upload it again. WHY, FFN? WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO MEH? Now the call for help is not as epic as it was originaleh D: Curses!_


	14. Tattered Memories

**Chapter Fourteen: Tattered Memories**

Shadow stepped lithely through the forest, his footsteps silent as he thought about Carlee's story. For what she had termed a children's bedtime story, the plotline was dangerously similar to his own life's tragic events.

For years he had wondered why Maria had sent him, instead of saving herself. He had never once considered himself more important than the girl, no matter how many times he referred to himself as the Ultimate Life Form. Why she would sacrifice herself to save him instead had always blown his mind; there hadn't been a single waking moment since that he didn't regret the action.

But, with the new context of Carlee's story, things seemed to fall into place.

_Love…could it be possible, though? That anyone could love someone else enough to die for them…how foolish. That's impossible. But Maria…_

"_Shadow…"_

Shadow stopped, freezing midstep. That voice…

"_Shadow, please…listen to me…"_

It had been so long…and she was dead. It couldn't be her. It was impossible!

"_Shadow!"_

Shadow slowly turned, and before his eyes the forest became the cold interior of Space Colony Ark. Maria lay face down on the floor, blonde hair falling down around her. The planet was visible in the window beyond, and the ceiling lights flickered, casting down eerie rays of thin light that struggled to stay on…just as Maria struggled to stay alive.

"MARIA!" Shadow started to run forward, but hit a barrier. He stepped back, rubbing his bumped head and grunting with surprise.

"Shadow…"

Shadow looked up to see that Maria had raised her head from the floor, clear blue eyes staring despairingly into his. "MARIA! LET ME OUT!" Shadow cried, desperate to reach the girl. He kicked and punched at the barrier with all the power he could muster, but it was no use. The glass would not break.

"No, Shadow…. It's too late for me. I…have been sh-ot…" Maria winced, her voice breaking as she pulled her hand out from under her chest, her fingers covered in ruby red blood.

"MARIA!" Shadow screamed, pounding on the glass with even more force, his desperation giving way to madness as his eyes locked on the dripping blood that was spreading on the reflective metal floor.

"Shadow…you were my best…and only friend in this world. I wanted so much…to see the planet with you…the mountains and lakes…and the leafy trees…" Maria laughed weakly and began coughing hoarsely, flecks of blood flying from her mouth.

Shadow pressed himself against the glass, tears streaming down his cheeks in frustration and intense anxiety.

"It's too late for me now…but even before then I knew it had to be you…it was always you. You're more than my friend, Shadow…you're family to me…you're my little…brother…" Maria smiled weakly and reached out for Shadow, bloody fingers stretched longingly toward the glass separating hedgehog from human. "Shadow…go…and see the world for me…enjoy it…and protect it…just like grandpa Gerald created you to do…make some…new friends…don't forget me…but don't ever...be…sad…"

Shadow trembled as he listened, tears dropping to the ground like rain.

"Shadow… I…love…you…" Maria's hand dropped to the floor and she collapsed face down in her quickly pooling blood, never to speak again.

"MARIA!" Shadow screamed.

All of a sudden the silvery surroundings flew around him in a tornado-like blur, changing rapidly into a blend of brown and green splashes, and then there he was, in the forest, once again. Shadow collapsed against the tree that had once been the barrier between him and his forgotten memories, knees sinking into the dirt and leaves. His face was wet…he wiped his eyes with his gloves, then brushed a hand back through his quills.

Closing his eyes, he turned and sat back against the tree, looking up to the sky and rubbing his forehead. "Damn…" He murmured, thinking about what he had just experienced, "That was the worst flashback I've had in a long time…" He opened his eyes, picturing Maria's face and wishing she were there, sitting beside him, the way she used to sit beside him on the Ark as they stared out at Mobius from the wide windows. "And all it took to remember it was Carlee's story…"

Shadow blinked, thinking about Maria's words. New friends. At the moment, he really had no friends. For a long time he'd kept others at a distance, not wanting anyone to get close to him like Maria had in case they too were ripped away in a flash like she had been. But Maria had wanted him to make friends…

Vanilla and Cream were so kind to him, helping him out without even knowing him…and Sonic, for all his ego, had always been rather friendly to him too…not to mention the overpowering friendliness of Rouge. Perhaps it was time to make some friends…if that's what Maria wanted…and he knew just where to start this endeavor.

He stood up and brushed himself off, smiling slightly as he started back through the trees. His first official new friend since Maria would be Carlee. She was impetuous and funny, and despite her taste in clothing he knew she was a good person. She reminded him somewhat of Maria—though definitely more bold in personality and a darker shade of blond in hair color. But most importantly, she was a loyal person. He could see that the moment she explained the meaning of the story to him and had talked about her friend Violet back in her home world. She wouldn't turn on him; he could trust her. Come to think of it, she hadn't even struck back when he had attacked her earlier…

He grimaced. He'd beaten her up and then left her crying in the middle of a forest she'd never been in before, without a thought to her feelings.

_That's__ the way to make friends._ He mentally berated himself. He sighed, slapping his forehead in anger at his actions. "I have to apologize to her…" He clicked his heels together, activating his hover shoes, and then began quickly skating through the forest, heading back to the path.

He got there in a relatively short amount of time, breezing easily over upturned roots and through piles of leaves until he could see the path ahead of him.

He slowed down as he got to the path, his hover shoes deactivating as he stepped onto it. Carlee wasn't there.

Shadow looked around, wondering if he had gotten turned around somehow during his walk and had returned to a different section of the path. No. The boulder was there on the right, next to a partially frozen tree. This was definitely the spot where he had left her.

Shadow was suddenly furious! _HOW DARE SHE LEAVE? _He calmed down a moment later, remembering what he'd done to her. It probably would have been a miracle if she _had_ stayed after what he'd put her through. This was no problem. She wasn't skilled enough with her strange shape-changing powers to have gotten very far, and she was new to this world so he was sure he'd find her very quickly. He'd track her down and apologize to her for what he'd done to her, make friends with her…and then happily carry her back to Vanilla's house and make her get a dress since she had left when he had told her to stay. Perfect.

Shadow smiled slightly, pleased with this idea. He started to take off when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. The dirt path had a streak through it off to the side, as though someone had swept their foot through the dirt very fast. He suddenly realized that there were more than two sets of footprints on the ground.

He carefully examined the footprints, determining which were his and which Carlee's were. After that he deduced that there were four sets of footprints where there should have been only two. The third set of prints started out behind the boulder, next to the fourth set (which had prints behind it but not ahead, showing that the fourth person did not walk onto the path.)The third set of footprints danced around the boulder, paused next to Carlee's set, and then Carlee's set traveled to the disturbed dust Shadow had noticed first.

_She…kicked dirt into this person's eyes…_ Shadow's heartbeat quickened as adrenaline pumped in his veins. Something was very wrong here.

"_SHADOW!_"

Birds took flight, squawking fearfully into the sky as the scream ripped through the forest.

"CARLEE!" Shadow dashed into the forest in the direction Carlee's voice had come from, his hover shoes activating and boosting his speed.

He whipped through the trees, darting around them and over upraised roots as he raced to find the girl. Up ahead he could see a wall of hedges with a hole burnt through them. He leaped over a fallen branch and through this gateway, sliding to a stop in an open, grassy field to see a tall, teenage boy off to his right.

The boy wore dusty, grass-stained beige pants and a dark red shirt. His tousled hair was reddish brown and he wore a sneaky grin on his face, looking like a cat that had swallowed a canary. Shadow didn't care about that, right now though. What he cared about was the girl hanging limply in his arms.

Carlee legs and arms dangled lifelessly from the boy's arms as he held her bridal-style, a feathered dart sticking out of her skin, the clear reason for her unconsciousness.

The boy was carrying a gun.

"Why you HEARTLESS BAS—" Shadow started as he began to run toward the boy, but before he could finish, fire erupted from underneath the boy's shoes and he began rising up into the air.

"NO!" Shadow ran and leapt up to try and grab him, but was knocked back by the force of the flames.

The boy laughed maniacally as he climbed higher and higher into the air with Carlee in his arms as Shadow crashed down to the ground. A shadow passed over the field, blocking out the sun, and Shadow looked up to see what looked like a flying ship coming in overhead.

A door opened outward like a ramp and the fire-powered boy dropped onto it, the flames ceasing to sprout from his feet. He walked into the door with Carlee in his arms, and it closed behind him.

Shadow cussed at the airship from the ground, recognizing it instantly as the distinctive airship known as the Egg Carrier. "EGGMAN! YOU BRING HER BACK OR ELSE! I'M COMING AFTER YOU AND I WILL NOT REST UNTIL YOU BRING HER BACK, DO YOU HEAR ME?" He shouted, running to the edge of the cliff and shaking his fist at the massive airship as it flew slowly away in the sky.

"Sh-Shadow?"

Shadow looked to his left to see an orange, two-tailed fox looking at him with surprise. Shadow internalized his anger, not wanting Tails to see how upset he was. He recognized the little fox a moment after he saw him and remembered him as being the kid that followed Sonic around all the time.

"He…took my friend…" Shadow growled, trying to suppress his rage and keeping an eye on the retreating airship.

Tails looked at Shadow dejectedly. He held up a broken walky-talkie. "I think he took mine, too."

Shadow raised an eyebrow at Tails.

Tails raised an eyebrow at Shadow.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Shadow said, walking over to Tails and holding out his hand.

Tails shook it and nodded. He paused, his ears flicking down and then up again. "Something's…different about you, Shadow."

"That's what people keep saying." Shadow said, thinking of Cream, "I'm going to take a wild guess…did you meet a human girl named Violet?"

"Yes! We were checking to see the range of these walky-talkies when all of a sudden she stopped responding. I traced the tracker chip I implanted in it to a spot not far from here…that's when I saw a column of fire in the sky over here and I ran over in time to hear you…" Tails explained. He looked at the smashed and slightly melted walky-talkie, comparing it to the repaired one in his other hand. "Looks like these'll never work again…"

"Well, the girl I met is named Carlee, and she was just taken by a pyromaniac. From the looks of your machine there, they were taken by the same guy. And that guy is working for Robotnik." Shadow said with a nod.

"Carlee…yeah, Violet mentioned her a few times. I think they're friends."

"They're definitely friends. But that boy is no friend of theirs or ours. We need to get to that airship, fast!"

"Come with me! We can follow them in one of my airplanes!"

"What are we doing wasting time talking, then? Lead the way!" Shadow commanded.

He and the fox rushed off toward the workshop.

_Author's notes:_

_Okay so maybe it wasn't seven pages but hey, it's enough pages to constitute another chapter. Looks like Shadow was a bit too slow. C'mon, Shad, step it up! xD Also I reworked Maria's last words. *is shot for having done this* I figured, I messed around with the way Tails met Sonic, why not destroy the tragic memory of Maria's last words while I'm at it? *headdesk* Actually I think my version of Maria's last words is somewhat more sorrow-inducing than the original…hope you agree. And if you don't, well… *hides under rock from rabid Shadow/Maria fans*_

_I guess the title for this chapter didn't have much to do with it in reality except maybe for the part about Shadow's memory of Maria, but it sounded epic in my mind so I'm sticking with it xD_

_Edit: Mah dear readers, it was good to see how concerned you were for Carlee! It warms my heart to see so much concern…but I'm not a mary-sue author, sometimes things are going to take a turn you never expected. DON'T KILL ME! This was how the original story went, after all xD_


	15. Unconvinced

**Chapter Fifteen: Unconvinced**

Cold.

Violet felt very cold. And she felt like she had a migraine coming on to boot… She opened her eyes slightly and had to immediately close them again. Why did everything have to be so bright…?

Violet let her eyes adjust for a moment, trying to remember where she was and what had happened. She was lying flat on her back on something hard, cold, and smooth…

Her eyes snapped open as she remembered. Ash. She'd been talking to Ash and then something had hit her in the arm…then nothingness. What happened? She sat up groggily, groaning and rubbing her head. Her arms felt heavy as lead. She tried to shake off the feeling by stretching and looking around the room.

This didn't look anything like Tails's workshop…it didn't look like anything at all, actually. Just an empty, metal room.

_How boring…_ Violet yawned, blinking again. Suddenly she realized she wasn't alone in the room. She looked to her right to see a blond girl lying on a metal table a few feet to the side of the one Violet was sitting on.

"Carlee?" Violet suddenly felt more awake. She swung her legs off the side of the table and jumped down to the floor—only to collapse under her own weight against the other table. Violet yelped in surprise and then pulled herself up to stand again, stretching her legs. Looked like her body wasn't as awake as her mind was, quite yet.

Violet looked at the girl on the table. It was definitely Carlee! She could tell from the pants alone. She wondered where the new shirt had come from though. "Carlee? Wake up!" Violet shook Carlee's shoulder, looking down at her friend worriedly.

Carlee stirred as Violet began prodding her. Without opening her eyes, she muttered, "No, mom, I'm sick today…can't go to school…"

"Carlee, it's me, Violet! Wake up!" Violet forcefully jabbed her hand into Carlee's side.

With a yelp that sounded more animal than human, Carlee jerked away from Violet, her eyes snapping open as she fell off the table on the opposite side. Violet leaned over the table and peered down at Carlee. "Oops…"

"Ow!" Carlee rubbed her head, opening one eye to glare up at Violet, "Violet, what the heck was that f—VIOLET?"

Carlee jumped up and immediately fell over the table, her body still in sleep-mode. She hug-tackled the younger girl, wrapping her arms tightly around Violet's middle with a huge grin. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

Violet smiled sheepishly, hugging Carlee back. "I'm glad to see you, too."

Carlee straightened up and braced her hands on the edge of the metal table, stretching like a cat to get her muscles working again. "Where were you?" She asked, unable to keep the smile off her face.

"I woke up in a meadow and I met a two tailed fox. He could stand on two legs and talk. His name is Tails, he let me stay at his workshop with him and he owns a bunch of planes! And he likes to build things just as much as I do!" Violet said, bubbling over with excitement, "What about you?"

"I met up with this hedgehog named Shadow…he could stand on two legs too. He looked like that monster guy in the attic of the Old Grimmsby Place, only he had red stripes and didn't have purple crystals all over him…" Carlee shivered at the memory of the monster.

"Was he nice?"

"Eh…sometimes…" Carlee rubbed her neck, unwilling to think about the fight she and Shadow had had. Suddenly she remembered what had happened shortly after the fight. "Oh, _CRAP!_" Carlee started quickly glancing around the room, looking for Ash.

"What? What's wrong?" Violet asked, watching Carlee and glancing around the room as well.

"It's Ash! He—"

"Has been waiting a long time for you two to wake up." Ash finished, walking through a doorway. The door automatically slammed shut behind him.

Carlee backed away from him, her back to the wall. Violet was confused by Carlee's reaction. She looked over at Ash. "Hey, what's going on?" She asked him, "Last I remember we were talking and then I woke up here…"

"You are both here because you have powers beyond comprehension. Because you two can control the elements, just like I can! And because with our powers combined, we can help change this planet for the better!" Ash said, crossed his arms over his chest.

"For the better of whom?" Carlee spat at him, "You ever ask Robot Rick who it is that this changed world is gonna benefit?"

"You'd better hold your tongue unless you want a repeat of earlier…" Ash warned.

Carlee flinched slightly. Violet noticed. "What happened earlier?" The younger girl asked.

"Nothing…Carlee just got a taste of my powers, that's all…"

"You freaking kidnapped me!" Carlee objected, pointing an accusing finger at the boy.

Ash shot a fireball at Carlee and the girl leapt to the side.

"Hey!" Violet shrieked, unable to believe her eyes, "Stop it, Ash!"

"She's asking for it." Ash retorted, snorting.

"Why do you always have to be such a jerk?" Violet glared at Ash, her hands on her hips.

"Why do you always have to stick your nose in other people's business?" Ash growled back.

"Did you kidnap HER, too?" Carlee asked angrily, frowning at Ash.

"I didn't kidnap either of you, I—"

"Isn't the definition of kidnapping 'to take someone someplace against their will?'" Carlee spat at Ash again, colors dancing in her eyes.

"Shut up!" Ash yelled at her, losing his temper, "Do you WANT to get burned, or something?"

"Real mature, Ash, because violence is ALWAYS the answer." Carlee said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, that is IT!" Fire streamed from Ash's fingertips, hurtling toward Carlee.

"NO!" Violet thrust her hand forward and water gushed from her palm, dousing the flames. The water stopped pumping from Violet's hand and the girl stepped, back, looking at her palm in surprise.

Ash smirked. "I told you so." He said to Violet, his eyes glittering with slight amusement.

"B-but…I…" Violet stammered in confusion, looking from her hand, to Ash, and back again.

"So that's your plan huh? Hurl fireballs at us until we reveal our powers? Then it's too bad for you I don't have any. So you can tell that fat, mustached jerk that I'm of no use to him in his little plan and he can just let me go. And Violet too. We want no part of this."

Violet looked at Carlee, blinking in surprise at the vehemence of the elder girl's words. "Who are you talking about?" She asked, confused.

"That would be me…" Robotnik stepped in through the door, fingering his mustache. He looked over at Carlee. "Smart girl." He said approvingly, "You have great control over your powers already it seems, to keep them suppressed even when you're threatened with fire."

"I've told you three times already, Robot Rick, I don't HAVE powers." Carlee growled at him.

Violet made a mental note not to trust this man. Anyone Carlee despised this much couldn't possibly be a good person.

"RobotNIK, not Robot Rick." Robotnik patiently corrected with a slight smile, "And you will reveal yourself in time, one way or another."

"Like heck I will!" Carlee snapped at him.

"And there we go; confirmation that you have powers from your own tongue." Robotnik nodded, grinning slightly more with silent laughter.

"I said that because I DON'T have powers, not because I'm hiding them! You're twisting my words." Carlee growled.

"I think, perhaps we should talk later. Why don't you direct Carlee to her room, Ash?" Robotnik said, nodding toward Ash.

Ash smiled darkly and stalked toward Carlee, his hands lighting on fire. Carlee glanced at Violet desperately. Violet stuck out her hand and shot a stream of water at Ash, thoroughly dousing him and putting out the flames. Carlee dashed past him and out of the open door, calling back to Violet, "DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING THE FAT GUY SAYS TO YOU!"

Ash shot a nasty look at Violet for dousing him, then took off after Carlee, running swiftly out the door.

Robotnik stepped back in front of the door as it closed, cutting off the only exit from Violet. Violet backed up against the wall, looking over at him anxiously.

"Do not be afraid, my dear; I will not harm you. I only wish to help." Robotnik said pleasantly, smiling kindly at Violet.

"I don't think I need any help from you…" Violet crossed her arms, looking off to the side.

"Of course you do. I can help you learn how to use your powers, just as I've helped Ash with his. And once we've finished, we can use your powers to help the world. Together, we can make the world a better place."

"For who?" Violet asked, remembering Carlee's words.

"For everyone who lives here, of course." Robotnik shrugged.

_He looks and sounds so honest…_ Violet glanced up at Robotnik again, then back down. _Carlee doesn't trust him though…and she's always been a good judge of character._ She locked eyes with Robotnik, who smiled warmly at her. _Could she be wrong…?_

"_He's a tyrant."_ Tails's words suddenly echoed in her mind as she stared into Robotnik's eyes. She blinked and shook her head. _No, that's too much of a coincidence. I can't trust him._

"What do you say? Will you join me and help me help the world?" Robotnik held out his hand toward Violet, staying in place.

_He is one smooth talker. I've got to be careful around him._ Violet walked up to him and shook hands with him. "Yeah, I'll join you." She said, smiling faintly up at him.

"Very good." Robotnik said, pleased, "Since you've said yes, we'll begin setting up a room for you here on the airship."

"Airship?" Violet asked as Robotnik led her out the door and through the hall.

"Yes, my dear; we are flying through the sky in a massive hovercraft I built from scratch."

Violet was impressed.

"There are many rooms aboard this ship. We'll get you situated in one, and then you can decorate it according to your tastes."

"What about Carlee?"

"Until she comes to her senses, she'll be staying in the brig of the airship. I'm sure she'll change her mind soon enough, and then we can begin working to help her control her powers and she'll get a room of her own as well. Right next to yours, if you'd like."

_So, submit and be given whatever you want or get thrown in a cage. No wonder Carlee doesn't like you, _Violet thought. She smiled at Robotnik. "That sounds great!"

"I'm glad you approve." Robotnik stopped in front of a doorway, "Here we are; this will be your room."

The door opened to reveal a completely white room with a small cot in the corner. A small, square ventilation shaft opened above the bed, and there was a small white dresser with a lamp on it beside the bed.

"It's…kind of plain, isn't it…" Violet faltered.

"We'll decorate it soon enough. Whatever you need, I will build for you. You will have anything you desire in return for your cooperation."

_Well that's a weird way to phrase it, Mr. McCreepy._ Violet thought to herself. She walked inside and sat on the bed. "So…what do I do now?" She asked, cocking her head slightly to the side.

"I have to have a little chat with your friend, now. Why don't you take a short nap? I'm sure you must be tired, still. You need plenty of rest if you want to be ready for training." Robotnik replied in a caring tone that rang false in Violet's ears.

"Okay…" Violet said, lying back on the bed.

"Sweet dreams." Robotnik closed the door.

Violet heard a click, then quickly retreating footsteps down the hall. She swung her legs off the bed and got up, walking quietly to the door and trying the knob. She was locked in from the outside.

_Author's Notes:_

_OMG I'm so sorry everyone! I meant to have this up last week but I got really sick and wasn't on the computer at all for quite a while. Then I lost my flash drive with this story saved on it (Major scare, there!) but I've found it and here it is. I'll try to post the next chapter on Tuesday to make up for missing this! Sorry everyone!_


	16. A Glimpse of Truth

**Chapter Sixteen: A Glimpse of Truth**

Carlee pressed her back against the wall, as far away from the barred cell entrance as she could manage. The cell was concave with thick iron bars going from the top of the ceiling to the bottom of the floor. The bars went up or down with the touch of a massive button that was teasingly placed only a few feet away from the bars. The moment Ash departed, Carlee had reached out to try and push the button, only to find that at the length at which the button was from the bars, she couldn't exert the force needed to press it down.

She knew she could easily switch forms to a small animal and slip right through the bars, but she could clearly see a video recorder set up in the corner of the ceiling outside of the cell, aimed to point directly inside it, and she didn't want to shapeshift and dash out only to be caught two minutes later by Ash. She didn't know what Robotnik wanted with her powers, but she knew whatever it was couldn't be good. She was beginning to wonder if there wasn't some truth to the old folktales of her town, now believing that this man was connected to the evil hedgehog that had sent her to this world. They fit the descriptions of that one story…that was for sure.

Carlee wracked her brain to try and remember one strange town legend in particular as she heard the door open. Heavy footsteps echoed through the small prison hall to stop in front of her cell. Carlee didn't bother to look up at Robotnik, concentrating on remembering every detail of the folktale that she could.

"You can tell us which power you hold the easy way or the hard way." Robotnik informed her, looking down at her with a slightly amused expression.

"All right, you got me: I have the power of extreme annoyance. I can annoy you to no end in a matter of words in a short time frame. Now, leave me alone." Carlee slid down the wall and slumped to the floor, crossing her legs in front of herself and crossing her arms over her chest.

"You know very well that is not what I mean; although I must say that your so-called 'powers of annoyance' are more amusing than aggravating." Robotnik rubbed his mustache between his fingers, the corners of his lips twitching upward.

"A real pity. And to think I'd finally come up with an answer that would impress you enough to get me out of this cell and back in the forest." Carlee said sarcastically.

"I don't understand your animosity toward me. Why do you distrust me so, when I've been nothing but kind toward you?"

"Kind? You call kidnapping me kind?" Carlee spat at him, narrowing her eyes at him.

Robotnik leaned closer, looking at Carlee's eyes. For a moment it had appeared that her pupils had changed shape. But they were perfectly circular. Odd…

"We did not kidnap you. We brought you here for your safety. There are many dangerous creatures in this world, and we humans must stick together."

"The only dangerous creature I've met is _you_." Carlee said, glaring defiantly up at him, "Before you and Ash came along I was doing perfectly fine. I was traveling with a hedgehog and he—"

"A hedgehog?" Robotnik leaned in to the bars of the cell, glaring down at Carlee and momentarily dropping his nice-guy façade. In that moment Carlee saw the man from the portrait, clear as cut glass. She knew then that her instincts were right, at least about this man.

Something in her facial expression must have tipped him off, because Robotnik straightened up again and stepped back from the bars, his face taking on a more calm appearance. He didn't entirely conceal the monster peering out from behind his eyes, however. Carlee pulled one knee up, keeping her other leg straight and her arms crossed over her chest. She stared directly into his eyes, refusing to look away.

"So…you've met my…acquaintance…" Robotnik said slowly, carefully choosing his words, "Sonic…"

Carlee said nothing in response, waiting to see if he would say anything else that might be useful to her. _Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog…_ She repeated in her mind so she'd remember the name correctly when she got away. The vicious reaction Robotnik had had to her statement about traveling with a hedgehog revealed that this 'Sonic' was someone he absolutely hated…which meant that she needed to find and become friends with him.

Robotnik took her silence as confirmation of his statement. "Well then…" He tilted his head downward further, bringing himself up to his full height and looking down his nose at her, "I suppose you will not be forthcoming in revealing your element."

"It's hard to be forthcoming when you have nothing to be forthcoming about."

"Oh, but you do, and you know it. I can see it in your eyes." Robotnik's shadow stretched over Carlee, his body blocking out most of the overhead lights in the prison hall outside of the cell. Carlee shivered slightly as the darkness crawled over her skin, looking down and breaking eye contact with the man.

Robotnik stood there for a moment longer, then turned, walking down the hall toward the exit. The door opened automatically for him. He paused for a moment, looking back over his shoulder toward the cell farthest from the door. He couldn't see Carlee in her cell from this angle, but he knew he'd shaken her somewhat. He'd get her to talk soon enough.

Even the strongest of spirits can be broken.

**Pagebreak**

Ash smirked as he leaned against the doorframe of what was now his room. A few worker robots were painting the white room orange, and the bed sheets were red with gold trim. It was still a pretty bland room, but Robotnik had promised to furnish it with whatever Ash wanted. He hadn't been here for more than a day, so he hadn't been able to do much, but the changes he'd made already had turned the stark room into a much more welcoming one. Only one thing was missing.

The smile slipped from Ash's face as he began thinking again of Carlee.

In the past they'd flung insults at each other, but not like this. She used to look like she was inwardly laughing as they verbally sparred, like she enjoyed it in a way. Now she was looking at him as though he were some kind of monster…looking at him with the eyes of a cornered wild animal. He didn't like it.

He glared off to the side, looking out of the door of his room to stare blankly at the floor tiles. Robotnik kept his airship spotlessly maintained. Ash could see his reflection in each tile; a thousand scowling faces glaring back up at him.

Ash looked up again, away from the accusing eyes of his many reflections. He snapped his fingers and a small flame appeared, dancing above his fingertips. Was this the cause of his woe?

He swept his hand through the air and lowered it to his side, putting out the fire. He walked out of his room and down the hall, leaving the dutiful robots to finish working on his room.

The airship was painfully monochromatic. For all his imagination in building the machines and aircrafts, Dr. Robotnik didn't appear to be a creative interior designer. Every surface was clean, smooth steel. Metal bolts were the only things to break up the monotony, appearing in perfectly straight lines and running in straight horizontal and vertical lines along the walls every now and then as Ash continued walking down the hall. A few cleaning robots busily scrubbed at nonexistent specks of dirt on the tiled floor, ensuring that the airship would stay clean and monotonous forevermore. Ash found himself annoyed by the intense cleanliness of the hallways as he wandered aimlessly through the airship, his faint reflection at his side in the steel walls.

Presently he found himself at the door to the Prison Hall, where he'd chased Carlee earlier. He'd had a heck of a time chasing her. She was fast; he'd joined the boys' track team to increase his speed and stamina in high school just so he could keep up with her, and he was glad that he'd done so now since he had been able to keep her in his line of sight long enough to trap her in there. When he had triumphantly slammed down the button and trapped her in the cell she had been furious…but also, he could tell, scared…

She could try to hide it as much as she wanted to, but her emotions always leaked through for Ash. He could always tell how Carlee was feeling, even if others were fooled. Fear wasn't a typical emotion for her. When other girls were screaming about a snake being set loose in the classroom, Carlee was trying to pet it. Only a select set of things could ever get her to betray any hint of fear; she was hung up so much on keeping a cool outer appearance that she had gotten most people to believe she was unshakeable.

Today she'd dropped the unfazed expression long enough for Ash to catch it without trying—twice. First when he'd stood over her at the cliff's edge when he'd caught up to her…then when she realized she was trapped in the cell. She'd hid it almost immediately afterward, but her bewilderment at being trapped behind the bars had been strong enough to break through the mask long enough for Ash to really see how intensely afraid she was…and then when the anger slipped back into place he could still see the fear hiding behind her eyes.

Ash leaned back against the wall, staring at the door to the prison hall. _Why did it have to be this way?_ He sighed, rubbing his fingers against his forehead and closing his eyes.

Suddenly his pocket buzzed. Ash rummaged into it and pulled out a small walky-talkie with a red symbol on the side in the shape of Robotnik's face.

"Ash, bring Carlee to room 1A in Sector B. We are going to undergo testing to determine her power." The elder man's voice rang out shrilly from the device.

Ash nodded in response, then caught himself and pressed a button on the walky-talkie, speaking into it. "Got it. Where is Sector B again?"

"Go left after exiting the prison hall and continue down the hall until you cannot walk any further. Then turn right and you will find yourself in Sector B. The rooms are numbered accordingly."

"Okay." Ash stuffed the gadget back into his pocket and then walked forward into the prison hall.

**Pagebreak**

Violet, for lack of anything better to do, attempted to exercise her newfound powers by flooding her bedroom. She floated sheepishly on her bed in a small sea of water, feeling grateful that the bed hadn't been bolted to the floor and wondering if it might have been better if she'd dressed up as a pirate for Halloween instead of a Kimono Girl. She pulled out the chopsticks from her pocket and frowned slightly at slender pieces of carved wood.

If only Carlee wasn't so outspoken…maybe by now they would have been together and they could have made their escape. Sometimes the girl did things without thinking, unlike Violet, who preferred to think things through before taking action. Carlee was really too reckless…Violet hoped she was okay. She wondered where Ash had taken her. What he and Robotnik were doing to her…

Violet knew for certain that she wasn't going to have anything to do with this "Dr. Robotnik." No matter how nice he seemed, he had brought her and Carlee here against their wills, and being locked in a room that was so airtight that water could flood it only expounded upon Carlee's insistence that the man was less than trustworthy (not to mention Tails's mentionings of a tyrant.) She felt lucky that there was a small vent in the ceiling, which she would have tried to use an escape route if it weren't so small. Only a housecat could fit through a vent of that size.

Violet sighed, hugging her knees up to her chest as she sat on the bed. She wondered if Tails knew she was gone yet…she hadn't even been able to say goodbye to him. Would she ever see him again?

Though she hadn't known the young vulpine for long, she felt a strong bond with him. He was like the little brother she'd never had…and she missed him.

The water was still, its surface smooth as glass. Violet peered into it, careful not to shake the bed. Her troubled reflection stared back. Violet stretched her hand toward the water, and the reflection reached back for her. Fingertips touched, and a small, circular ripple passed through the pool. For a moment, Violet thought she saw Tails's image where hers should be; a concerned look crossing his muzzle as he touched fingertips with Violet. Then it was gone, and Violet looked back at herself once again.

She straightened up, then flopped back on the bed once again, lying with her arms folded behind her head and staring up at the flat white ceiling.

"_What are friends for?"_

Violet sighed.

_Author's Notes:_

_Yaaay, I got through the chapter :D At an early time too, it's only midnight. I've got to go collapse from exhaustion now. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, exciting stuff happens in the next one I promise._

_Edit: I didn't get many reviews for the last chapter so I decided not to post early after all =P Besides, my prewritten chapters ended at this one and I'll have to start writing again this week to upload punctually next Friday, sooo here ya go. Also, since on Fridays during the school year I have to travel from one place to another, uploading Fridays has become impractical and I will be uploading any time from Thursday to Saturday from now on. Since no one's complained thus far I figure this should be all right? Drop me a review to tell me what you think. _


	17. Standoff

**Chapter Seventeen: Standoff**

_There has to be a way out of here…_ Carlee glared at the button placed so temptingly near the bars of the cell door. The button's edges and contours came into sharp focus as she stared yearningly at it, and she realized her pupils had changed to slits once again. She glanced up at the video-camera placed in the upper corner of the wall across from the cell, but didn't force her pupils to shift back to their usual round shape. She figured that, like most security cameras, this one wouldn't be able to focus in so clearly on her eyes, so letting them change wouldn't be a problem as long as no one else was in the room. Ever since she'd woken up on the ship her instincts had been screaming at her to change forms, apparently to become a dragon in particular. She sensed her canine teeth lengthening as she thought about it and quickly made them shift back before the rest of her teeth followed suit.

Dragon form was certainly the safest form she could take; she remembered from the incident with Shadow that she could breathe more than just fire and the scales would protect her from any tranquilizer darts shot at her. Not to mention that with a long tail she could easily snake it through the bars and smack down the button to freedom. _However…_ She thought as she looked back up at the security camera, _that's just what you want me to do…_

The best chance she could see of getting out of this mess right now was to insist that she had no powers. After all, she wasn't a hothead like Ash. If she could just stay calm, Robuttnik (as she had decided to call him, now that she could actually remember his name) would eventually lose interest and hopefully set her free.

_Yeah right…_ Carlee rested her chin on her knees, arms folded around her legs as she sat on the floor, _I'm never getting out of here…_

Robotnik's true face sneered at her in her memory as she closed her eyes. Suddenly she heard the door to the hall open and she quickly opened her eyes, her pupils snapping from slits to circles. She blinked a few times to let her eyes adjust as Ash walked up in front of the cell.

"Ready to get out of here?" Ash asked in a bored tone.

Carlee leaned back against the wall, releasing her legs and crossing her arms over her chest. "What, so soon?" She asked sarcastically.

"Dr. Robotnik wants to see you."

"He was just here ten minutes ago?"

"Doesn't matter. He still wants to see you." Ash paused, looking at Carlee critically. "How do you know what time it is? There aren't any clocks in here…"

Carlee reached into her pocket, pulling out a pocketwatch the size of a pancake and showing it to him.

"WHAT IN THE—"

"Any more questions or can we get a move on? I was getting bored anyway." Carlee stuffed the massive watch back into her pocket. The pocket seemed deceptively flat against her leg.

Ash scowled at her. "If you try to run, I'm going to blast you." He warned.

"Wasn't planning on it." Carlee stood up, brushing the dust off her jeans. _Not until I figure out where the exits are, anyway…_ She added silently.

Ash looked at her doubtfully, then lifted his foot to stomp down the button. The bars slide back up into the ceiling. Carlee stayed put.

"You coming?" Ash frowned slightly at her.

"You lead, I'll follow."

"Oh, no, I am NOT letting you out of my sight!" Ash glared at her, steam beginning to rise from his clenched hands.

"And _that_," Carlee said, gesturing to his fingers, "is why I'm not letting _you_ out of _my_ sight. You go first or I'm staying."

Ash glared venomously at Carlee.

"You don't seriously expect for me to take off when I don't even know the way out. I'm not stupid, you know." Carlee glared back.

Ash's hands cooled. "All right, fine. But don't lag behind!"

Carlee didn't respond, instead concentrating on keeping her pupils from changing to slits again. Her heart had started pounding the moment Ash's fists started to give off smoke, and that did nothing to help her keep in control of her already agitated body.

She followed Ash out of the Prison Hall and into the main halls of the airship, keeping a safe distance behind him. When she'd first dashed off with Ash close behind, she hadn't been able to look around much. Now she took the time to closely look around the hallway, trying to spot any doors to the outside. None were forthcoming. _Can't leave Violet behind anyway…_ Carlee relented, _I'll have to find her first._

As she and Ash walked around a corner she noticed a square ventilation shaft near the bottom edge of the wall, with a small grate covering the entrance. She wondered if the vent might lead outside. She didn't linger by the vent though, keeping up with Ash so he wouldn't get suspicious.

Ash walked through a door marked 1A on the left of the hall. Carlee hesitated for a brief moment, then stepped inside. As she'd expected, the moment she entered, the door shut and locked behind her.

The room was as bare as the hallway had been, with undecorated steel walls. A metal chair stood in the center, and Robotnik stood beside it.

"Good to see you've decided to come without trouble." He greeted her, his nice-old-man mask firmly back in place.

Carlee gave him a deadpan expression. "What do you want?"

"I just thought you might like to be out of that cramped little cell for a while. Why don't you have a seat?" Robotnik gestured to the chair.

Carlee eyed the chair warily. "I'd rather not."

"It's not a suggestion." Robotnik murmured.

Ash looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then flexed his fingers.

_Violet's not the only one who can douse you with water, creep._ Carlee glared at him, then immediately widened her eyes as she felt her pupils start to shrink.

Ash jerked his head to the side to face her, but her eyes were back to normal by the time he had. He looked at her, confused for a moment, then seemed to brush it off in his mind.

"Fine." She said simply, then walked over to the chair, sitting back in it with her legs and arms crossed.

"Why don't you relax…?" Dr. Robotnik said, his gloved hands gliding down her arms. Goosebumps prickled across Carlee's skin as he did so. Suddenly he grabbed her wrists and slammed them onto the arms of the chair.

"HEY!" Carlee yelped as metal ringlets encircled her wrists, binding her to the metal chair.

"That's better." Robotnik calmly walked to the other side of the room. The wall turned as he walked toward it, a countertop filled with different medical instruments lined up on the solid steel surface. The wall completed its turn and clicked into place as Robotnik reached it. He delicately removed his silk gloves and placed them on an empty spot on the counter, exchanging them for some latex gloves which he pulled on with a -_snap_-.

Carlee's stomach twisted in knots and she could feel bile rising up in her throat. She choked it back down with a nervous cough, her pupils beginning to shrink. "What are those for?" She asked, knowing the answer already.

"Since you aren't going to reveal your element, we must resort to some…extreme measures…" Robotnik tenderly stroked a scalpel with a vicious blade. The sharp tip punctured the latex glove though no force had been applied when his finger had touched the surgical tool. He discarded the glove and snapped a new one on. Carlee turned pale.

Ash didn't seem comfortable with the idea either. "You aren't going to cut her or anything, are you?" He asked, his complexion paling slightly.

"Only if it becomes necessary. For now, I think a blood sample will do." Robotnik picked up a syringe from the tray of tools, testing the plunger and then reaching for a bottle of a green liquid.

Carlee watched as Robotnik inserted the absurdly long needle into the green liquid. As she watched, her world came into crystal clear focus once again. She knew that her pupils had changed shape, but at this point she didn't care. She wasn't about to waste any energy on changing them back. If a 'blood test' was all that was necessary to determine her power, then that green liquid going into the syringe wasn't—and she knew she had been right not to reveal the power she had until this moment. She knew for certain now that she could not trust this man any farther than she could throw him—and seeing as he was so stout in stature, that meant that she couldn't trust him at all.

Thankfully her legs were free. Carlee started to pull her feet up off of the floor, managing to get one sneaker's heel on the seat.

"Struggling will only make this more painful." Robotnik said, inwardly grinning as he approached Carlee with the wicked syringe. He stopped short when Carlee glanced at him with inhuman eyes. He froze for a moment as Carlee's eye bore into him, rainbow rings pulsating like colorful explosions around a dark, slash-shaped pupil.

Ash ran forward, realizing that something was happening. He barreled toward Carlee with his hands bursting into flame, intending to stop her—and was suddenly knocked back into the wall when a massive reptilian tail slammed into him from underneath Carlee's upraised leg.

"NO!" Robotnik ran forward himself now, slamming the needle into Carlee's arm—a split second too late, as the needle's tip broke on an impenetrable scale that had risen from her skin.

Carlee glared at him, saber-like teeth protruding over her bottom lip as she growled, "You wanted to see my power? WHY DON'T YOU FEEL IT?"

A webbed wing snapped out from her spine and hit the man squarely in the chest, knocking him over. Another wing quickly joined the first and Carlee began to futilely beat her wings at the chair out of instinct.

Ash lay on the floor where he'd fallen, stunned as he watched the girl he loved change into a monster before his eyes.

"FOOL! GET UP! WE MUST TIE HER DOWN BEFORE SHE GETS AWAY!" Robotnik yelled at him, trying to bring himself to his feet as well.

Ash snapped out of his daze and jumped to his feet, hurling a fireball at Carlee's head. Carlee's mouth lengthened into a muzzle and she spat a stream of water at the fireball, putting it out before it reached her. She was now almost completely in dragon form, save for her legs. She yanked her arms up against the metal chair and broke the clasps sealing her to it, leaping up from the seat—only to fall forward, off balance. Her legs transformed and she stood before the two confused and awestruck humans, a massive pearl-white dragon.

She hissed with her wings outspread as Ash raised up his fiery hands and as Robotnik gazed upon her with greedy eyes. The doctor put his hand inside of his coat pocket to pull out a sinister looking gun.

It was a standoff.

_Author's Note: CLIFFHANGER OF DESPAIR, DOOM, AND DESTRUCTION! Will Carlee get away, or will she be blasted/shot? Find out…NEXT MONDAY! Because seriously, me trying to update over the weekend is ridiculous during the school year, it seems. So, Mondays. We'll see how long this lasts ^^; sorry guys, at least I'm tryin'. Happy All Hallows Day!_


	18. Molten Metal

**Chapter Eighteen: Molten Metal**

"I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU COULD FLY THIS THING!" Shadow yelled at Tails over the roar of the propeller.

Tails glanced back at the black-and-red hedgehog, frowning. "We're still in the air, Shadow."

Shadow clung to the tail of the plane for dear life, adrenaline coursing through his veins as they crossed over the vast, dark ocean. "THEN WHY AREN'T WE GETTING ANYWHERE?" He shouted again, his canine teeth flashing as he snarled.

"You don't have to yell, I can hear you just fine." Tails said testily, "And it only looks like we're not going anywhere because the ocean has no landmarks."

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING?"

Tails felt like pulling his fur out. Ever since they'd taken off, the ebony hedgehog had been badgering him about the plane. He knew that part of it had to be because of his concern for losing track of Carlee, especially considering his past (which was common knowledge to every mobian except for Shadow due to his apparent memory problems), but he didn't think the hedgehog was taking Tails's anxiety over Violet's disappearance into account. The walkie-talky had been thoroughly melted, after all—would that be the condition in which he'd find Violet?

"I have a compass, Shadow. We're not going to get lost." He said simply, brushing aside the thoughts for now. The important thing was to find the two missing girls—and it wouldn't help to start freaking out as much as Shadow seemed to be.

The fluffy fox cast another glance back at the upset hedgehog. By all accounts, Shadow seemed to look as serious as he did normally. He lay on his belly on the plane, grasping each side of the tail tightly with his knees with his hands grasping the metal ahead of himself, fingertips clinging to the metal like suction cups. When they had first taken off, he had insisted upon standing up at the head of the plane as he had seen Sonic do several times in his flights with the young fox. The turbulence of takeoff had knocked him to the back of the plane, however, and when they got out over the ocean the hedgehog had decided it would be best to stay clamped around the tail of the plane just to be sure that he wouldn't fall off and plummet to his death in the water below. Much like Sonic, he wasn't one for swimming. His quills waved furiously in the air as the wind blew harshly by and he glared straight ahead, his vision cutting through Tails to the expanse of ocean beyond.

His words were not so calm. "DAMN IT, WHY HAVEN'T WE GOTTEN THERE YET? I KNOW THE AIRSHIP WENT IN THIS DIRECTION!"

"Calm down, Shadow! It took us fifteen minutes to get to the shop and set out in the Tornado, and you know how efficient Eggman's airships are as far as speed goes." Although the Doctor's airships were almost always the size of massive blimps, they could move at an incredible pace. Even the Tornado was hard-pressed to keep up with them despite Tails's ingenuity in designing it, and with a head start of fifteen minutes there was a strong possibility that they could lose the ship entirely.

Shadow and Tails were not prepared to take that chance.

Tails grasped the speed gauge firmly. "We're about to go into hyper speed! Get ready!"

Shadow groaned in response, tightening his knees around the tail of the plane even more fiercely and pressing himself against the metal so he wouldn't be blown away by the wind.

Tails gritted his teeth. "Here we go!"

**Pagebreak**

The room was silent as the three gazed at each other. No one moved. Ash's hands burned, and Robotnik's finger was tense against the trigger as he pointed it at the massive pearl white dragon in the corner of the room. In turn, she glared back at them, intimidating them with her piercing slit-pupil eyes.

Slowly it dawned upon all three that she was outnumbered.

A low rumble resounded from Carlee's throat, and the dragoness opened her muzzle partly to display rows of sharp teeth with a light flickering against them from the back of her throat.

Robotnik and Ash did not move.

Her jaws parted a bit more, the light growing to reveal the beginnings of a fireball in the back of Carlee's throat.

All of a sudden, Robotnik shot the gun, a tranquilizer dart blasting toward the exposed, unscaled part of Carlee's neck just beneath her jaw. At the same time, the dragoness jerked her head forward and blasted a fireball into the metal door, the heated flames ripping apart the bottom of the door to create a small, one-foot round hole in it. The dart struck a scale and bounced off, instead shooting into Robotnik's chest.

Ash blasted a column of fire directly at Carlee out of reflex, wondering if she was the same girl he'd fallen in love with or just a beast with rainbow eyes, but she leapt out of the way of the flames, changing in dimension to the size of a dragon kit and barreling toward the door.

Robotnik tore the dart out of his coat pocket, thankful that he'd decided to wear such thick clothing, and fired at the little dragon as she skittered across the smooth metal floor.

Ash dove onto the floor to catch her as she zigzagged across the room, but missed her tail by an inch when he grabbed for her. He hurled a fireball at the hole in the door, realizing where she was headed, but stubborn as always Carlee simply ducked her head and leapt straight through the flames into the hall on the other side.

Robotnik's second dart fired into the keypad at the door's side and shattered on impact, spilling its contents over the keypad and short-circuiting it as the sleep-inducing liquid trickled between the spaces in the keypad into the wires below.

Ash flinched at the electricity zapping from the keypad, sliding to a stop in front of the door.

"Ignore it! Just blast it open and I'll repair it later! We have to capture her before she escapes!" Robotnik rushed toward him, gun at his side.

Ash raised his flaming hands and pulled them down over the metal door, literally ripping a gaping hole through the mound of metal that used to be the door. The molten metal dripped down to the floor and Ash jumped through the opening left behind. Robotnik followed without a moment's pause; which was unfortunate for each, as they slipped on the ice covered floor and fell hard on their backs.

"Look before you leap, morons!" Carlee called from the end of the hall, coughing up a few snow flurries afterward.

Ash sat up, his fingers slipping on the ice-covered metal floor as he glared at Carlee. He raised a hand, setting it afire once again, and blasted a fireball over at Carlee. The heat emanating from the flame ball melted the ice as it spiraled toward the small dragon.

Carlee leapt to the side and charged down the hall out of Ash's sight, dodging the fireball. Ash lowered his hand, melted ice water putting out the fire encasing it as he did so. He rolled over onto his knees and then stood up, running back over to Robotnik and then kneeling by the old man.

"Are you all right?" He asked, putting a hand on Robotnik's arm and trying to pull him up.

Robotnik jerked his arm away from Ash roughly, growling. "Forget about it, just go after her!" He barked at Ash.

Ash blinked in surprise at the change in the old man's voice, recoiling slightly in response.

Robotnik pulled himself up, cradling his arm and groaning slightly, the arm seemingly bent at an odd angle.

_It must be broken, that's why he sounds so harsh, because he's in pain…_ Ash thought. "Just let me—"

"Go! Go. I'll be fine." Robotnik's voice stayed gravelly, but it wasn't as callous as before. The man covered his eyes, seemingly massaging his forehead with his fingers as if to relieve pain.

"Okay, I'll be back, just don't move!" Ash quickly got to his feet and ran down the hall, water splashing at his heels.

He turned the corner but slid to a stop, realizing he had no idea which way Carlee would have gone as the hall diverged into three separate and distinct paths. He cursed, punching the pristine metal wall with his clenched fist. He smelled something strange then; like the melted metal door in the hall he had just left. He looked down and noticed an air vent with a neat, melted round hole in its center. He smirked as he watched the metal drip down onto the clean floor and kneeled down in front of the air vent, lighting his hands on fire.

"This makes things a _lot_ easier…"

**Pagebreak**

Violet picked at the screws in the ventilation shaft. She had two of the screws out halfway, thanks to the chopsticks. Somehow she had managed to wedge the thin edge of one of the sticks into the little X crevice on top of the screw, and she had begun methodically twisting the screws around and around, pulling them out bit by bit.

She wasn't sure why she was doing it, really. She wouldn't be able to squeeze through the little shaft and even if she could, she would be lost in the airship. The trip through just a few of the halls on the way to this room with Dr. Robotnik had taught her that much. She just needed to give her hands something to do while her brain tried to sort things out.

Carlee was acting strange when she'd last seen her—stranger than usual, in any case. The elder girl had always been limber, but now her movements were completely fluid. It kind of reminded Violet of a pet cat she'd owned years ago, a little Egyptian Mau who always assumed a proud yet liquid stance when it faced something deemed dangerous. And its eyes seemed to flash with color whenever its pupils dilated or shrank…but it was impossible, of course, for a human's eyes to shrink to slits the way a cat's could…

Violet was startled out of her reverie with a jolt as the ventilation shaft's cover suddenly sprang open on her, something heavy and scaly dropping down upon her from the darkness above. She screamed and violently shoved the thing off of her stomach and her bed, the scaly thing plunging into the water of the bedroom.

A moment later two eyes appeared above the surface of the water.

Violet paled. "A crocodile?" She croaked, creeping backwards away from the watching eyes as far as she could on the small cot without tipping it over.

The head rose more out of the water, its eyes glistening as it began to swim forward.

"HOLY—A DRAGON?" Violet stood up on the bed, clinging to the bedpost to keep her balance and avoid falling off.

The dragon spat out a bit of water in Violet's general direction. "Keep it down! They'll hear you!" It hissed at her.

Violet's jaw dropped. "Carlee?"

"The one and only." The dragon swam over to the edge of the bed and climbed on top of it, shaking itself off and flapping her small wings.

"But—how did you—" Violet spluttered.

"No time to explain! We have to get out of here before—"

"YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE!" Ash's voice rang through the ventilation shaft, echoing through the metal walls of the shaft and making it sound as though he were directly above them.

Carlee jumped up and grabbed Violet's hand, pulling the girl down onto the bed. "Get ready to hang ten, Vi!"

"What?"

Carlee hacked a massive fireball directly at the door, taking out the lower half of it. Immediately the once-still water roared into a flood, whooshing out the large hole to spread over the hallway. The bed rushed toward it as well, riding on the wave of energy.

Violet yelped as Carlee pulled her down flat on the bed, the cot sliding right underneath what remained of the door with the girl and dragon on board. A moment later and she would've smacked her face directly into the hot metal.

The cot slammed into a railing, sending the two girls flying over the edge to the wide open floor below.

It's funny how time just seems to slow down, when you know you're about to die. Violet couldn't help thinking that she never thought this would be the way she'd go. Would anyone remember her, after she was gone? Would anyone care? And why hadn't she done anything to really make herself noticed, make the world a better place, before now?

Before she could ask herself any more questions, she was jerked to a halt in midair as something clamped onto her shoulders.

"Don't give up on me yet, Vi." Carlee growled above her.

Violet looked up in surprise to see that Carlee was suddenly a lot bigger than before. "How did you get so big?" She gaped at the dragon.

"I can shapeshift, all right?" Carlee spat out, looking strained.

Violet realized that Carlee was having trouble flapping her wings—each wing seemed to be operating separately from the other.

Violet gasped. "Can't you fly?"

"There's a first time for everything, right?" Carlee suddenly flipped forward in the air, holding Violet tightly in her grasp above her and falling down from the second floor to crash into the tiled floor below.

_Author's Notes: Double Rainbow all the way across the sky, yeah, Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaah! So intense! This is the song I've been listening to after writing the first three pages of this, so if there are mistakes it's because I've been listening to that song the entire time. Wow, wow, oooh my god, look at that rainbowww!_

_Sorry this is two days late, Monday wasn't the greatest day in the world for me._


	19. This or That?

**Chapter Nineteen: This or That?**

"I told you we weren't lost." Tails announced triumphantly to Shadow as he began landing preparations in the Tornado. They had finally caught up to the Egg carrier after enduring four hours of barren seascape.

"Something doesn't seem right…" Shadow muttered after a moment.

Tails couldn't help agreeing. The last few times he and Sonic had chased after the massive airship, they had been fired upon almost nonstop by the vessel. This time, not a single spiked cannonball had flown toward the plane.

This could only mean one of two things. The first, that it was a trap and Eggman was waiting to spring on them once they landed. The second, that Eggman had not yet noticed them…this theory seemed highly unlikely, unless Violet or Carlee had managed to distract the fat man somehow, and he couldn't see how two frail teenage girls could manage that against a well-experienced evil genius. "We can't go back now, though." He mused aloud as small wheels emerged from a compartment on the bottom of the plane.

"Of course not." Somehow, Shadow seemed calmer than he had been the past few hours. Tails wondered if it was because the hedgehog was relieved at finding the ship, or because he was steeling himself for a battle. The one-expression-fits-all face that Shadow perpetually wore didn't help Tails figure out which of the two it was.

"Hold on tight!" Tails maneuvered the plane in for landing on the lengthy airstrip so prominently placed on the airship. As Eggman was not known for flying planes off the carrier, Tails wasn't sure who the strip was built for in the first place. In any case, it was definitely useful now.

The wheels lightly touched down on the strip, bouncing once and then sticking. Tails slowed the plane as it smoothly ran down the length of the strip, then turned it around so that they could use the same strip when they needed to fly out again.

Tails locked the controls on the plane and then swung his legs over the side of it, hopping down onto the strip below. His knees shook when he landed, stiff from the long hours flying the plane. The little fox stretched his arms over his head and then began to stretch his legs, looking up at Shadow. "Are you coming?" He asked in surprise as he realized the hedgehog was still clutching the tail of the plane.

"Yes." Shadow said testily, flashing a fang unintentionally, "Just as soon as I can move my limbs again…"

"Oh! Why didn't you say so?" Tails shook out his tails and then spun them like a propeller, flying up to the tail of the plane and grabbing Shadow's arm to pull the hedgehog off.

It wasn't as easy as he had bargained for. Shadow truly was stuck to the plane; the cold temperature at the altitude they'd been in for so long had apparently caused Shadow's relatively warm body to stick like a magnet to the cold metal plane. Tails stopped flying, instead bracing his feet against the plane and pulling on Shadow's arm with as much strength as he could muster. After a moment of vigorous tugging, the hedgehog suddenly broke free of the plane and the two mobians fell off of it with a yelp and a growl.

Shadow pulled himself up off of Tails and brushed off his arms. "Thank you." He said curtly to the fluffy fox, turning away from him.

"Would it have killed ya to help me up?" Tails asked, sitting up and rubbing his head where it had smacked the pavement.

Shadow glanced back and picked up Tails by the scruff, setting the fox down on his feet. Tails rubbed his neck with a miffed expression. That wasn't what he had meant by getting helped up, but he decided he should have expected as much from the cold-hearted hedgehog.

He was drawn again to the memory of Shadow's impassioned shouting at the airship when he had first come upon him. It was the first time Tails had ever seen the hedgehog show any emotion other than disdain. He cast another glance at the hedgehog. Was his cold-hearted demeanor a façade?

Shadow could feel the fox kit's eyes boring into him, but he ignored the intense gaze, instead examining the airship. There were three doors ahead of him, along with two sets of stairs to either side of these doors that led up to what Shadow assumed was the cap of the airship. The walls were painted red and yellow, and a circular symbol that looked peculiarly similar to Eggman's face was painted on the wall above each of the doors (a testament to the man's ego.) As to the flooring, the landing strip gave way to solid metal slabs that were bolted to each other in a way that was practically, but not artistically, designed.

Seeing as how no robotic fiends had come to attack them yet, Shadow could only assume that the Doctor was preoccupied. If this was the case, this was in his (and Tails's) favor. If their luck continued, he and Tails would find Carlee and be in and out without complication. _And Violet too_, he added mentally a moment afterward; it was difficult to remember a girl he had never met.

Without another moment's pause, Shadow began striding for the center door. Tails immediately darted up to him, at the hedgehog's side but a little behind him. It reminded Shadow vaguely of a scruffy puppy that had once stayed at his heels as he had been walking through what remained of Station Square. He had tried to kick the little thing away, but the puppy still followed him, whimpering but resolute. Though Shadow hadn't thought much of the mutt at the time, he felt a twinge of pity now, when he thought of the pup…its matted, dirt-stained fur, its ribs sticking out from its sides…

"Shouldn't we come up with a plan first?" Tails suddenly asked from behind Shadow, shaking him out of his thoughts.

"…We get in. We get the girls. We get out. That's the plan." Shadow said simply, casting away the thought of the mangy puppy as easily as he had kicked it away so many years ago.

"But Shadow—"

Shadow stopped abruptly in front of the middle door and then looked to a keypad stationed to the side of it.

"Don't worry, I'll get us in. Eggman always uses his own stupid nickname for a password, and if that doesn't work then I can just use my screwdriver to—"

Shadow brutally slammed his fist into the keypad with crushing force, the keypad exploding with sparks and smoke as the wires melted.

"…or…you could do that…"

Shadow didn't respond, coldly walking through the center door into the hull of the carrier.

Tails meekly followed after him as the hedgehog walked calmly through the maze of hallways, apparently very familiar with the inner mechanics of the ship. As Shadow had been blackmailed into working with Eggman in the past, Tails supposed that it was only natural that the black-and-red 'hog would know the layout of the various buildings and airships that the doctor built, and decided not to question it.

Given the choice of the three doors, Tails decided he would've taken the one on the right, had he been alone. As the old saying goes, 'right is always right' after all, and Tails trusted his intuition. Tails supposed that even if Shadow hadn't had some memory of the workings of Eggman's ship, he would've still gone through the center door though. He was always a more direct person, after all.

Shadow suddenly stopped as the path split in two directions. Lost in his thoughts, Tails bumped into him and then reflexively flinched back, remembering how violent Shadow had been in the past.

"Is…something wrong, Shadow?" Tails asked, relaxing when no angry elbow jabbed into his stomach.

"Yes…" Shadow stared thoughtfully at the two paths.

"What is it?" Tails asked.

"We're lost."

_Author's Note:_

_MaliceArchangela demanded that I stop this chapter here. She is fun =D But also sometimes violent, especially when I make her lose The Game. xD Which you have also just lost. And no, Malice. I am not mean._

**I am not violent, Shapeshifting fool, you are simply annoying. Why I am friends with you, I will never know.**

_Because you love meh and you know it. And I am not annoying. I'm just like a scruffy puppeh dog that won't go away but you hate to kick it because even though it's annoying it loves you to death. And bacon. But that's another story._

**(raises an eyebrow) You are weird, you know that right? Don't answer that. Anyway, if you keep telling everyone that I'm violent, I won't have any friends left!**

_Lies. I'll still be here._

**Joy. And that makes things all better…how?**

_Cuz I'm awesome, duh._

**You keep telling yourself that.**

_(looks in the mirror and grins ridiculously)_

**Narcissist.**

_Being pleased with one's awesomeness is not narcissism, it is acceptance of Chuck Norris-ness. Also, I don't even feel comfortable calling myself "pretty" for fear of seeming full of myself so that's about out of the question but anyway my fans are probably like "What da fish?" right now._

**Okay, I know that this is the forbidden question but…who's Chuck Norris? People keep talking about him. And readers who are eavesdropping (not something very nice to do by the way), yes, I do live under a rock that I don't know, so stop asking!**

_C NU O*W EF HN PIC G )W E*OJ ( W & *GH C NJ(W DCHUI KQJH N OC*N CHUCK NORRIS IS GOD + 2!_

**I thought that Pein from Naruto was supposed to be "god", or Kira from Death Note…**

_Blaaaaaaaaaaaah Aflack. Anyway say goodbye for now cuz I gotta do legit author's notes here now._

**(straight face) Goodbye for now cuz I gotta do legit author's notes here now**

_And you said *I'm* annoying? xD_

**No, I'm **_**saying**_** it.**

_I'm drawing vulpix you watching me eat a smoothie, dude._

**!**

**Just kidding! I could stand to take a jog instead anyhow.**

_Ain't she a peach? Anyway *pushes MaliceArchangela away* here are my notes—and before you point fingers Malice did in fact type all those bolded statements at me, herself. She and I sit next to each other during fourth block on B-days in our high school's library; her for AP Calculus (I know, insane right? *sucks at math*) and she quite literally stole my keyboard away from me to type these things onto my document for you guys. So mean! *crocodile tears* xD_

_Anyway firstly, I checked my polls and have 15 votes…and 18 unique voters. WHO STOLE THE OTHER THREE BALLOTS? D=_

_Secondly, if Shadow seemed a bit abrupt, silent, and/or moody this chapter, it's because every time I read a terrible Shadow x Fancharacter fic I become paranoid about making Shadow in any way out of character in my story and immediately make him more abrupt, silent, and/or moody to keep him as close to the true Shadow as I possibly can. It's just seriously ticking me off that people are crushing on one of the most popular hedgehogs (second only to Sonic of course) and love him to death, yet somehow change every aspect of his personality in the process of writing about him being madly in love with a fancharacter._

_Lastly, I'm ashamed of you D= Eighteen unique voters and I only get two to four reviews for every chapter I write? Seriously? What am I writing for if I have no feedback? If you want to have any impact on my writing of the story at all at least say something. Honestly I'm starting to lose faith in you. I made a pact in the beginning to upload one chapter a week and was on time for five months straight before I ran out of chapters thanks to schoolwork and have given up my spare time to write what I hope can be considered as quality fanfiction for you to read and enjoy, and yet only a few of you can bother to even say "Nice job" or "keep up the good work" ? Now what kind of thank you is that )=_

_I'm glad you read it and like it and I don't mean to chew out you mute readers out there, but really the only reason I have for writing at all is knowing that people are enjoying the story. And how can I possibly know if my work is satisfactory if no one takes the time to tell me…?_

_I know some of you are busy, and I know some of you have read it before. But would it kill you to say something about the story even if it's just the words "Nice job" …?_

_I'd like to thank all the readers who do post a comment on every chapter, no matter how short it is, and for those of you who catch my mistakes and point them out to me in a kind way so I can fix them so that everything is perfect for the next reader who comes along. It's good to know I can count on a few people for an electronic high five after I spent four or five hours writing a decent chapter while staying true as possible to canon character's personalities._

_Anyway don't take this as an in-your-face kind of Author's note, I'm just disappointed to find out how many people have voted in comparison to how many people actually care enough to review this story…_

_Thanks for the pagebreak ideas by the way, those who submitted them. If the one I put above this miniparagraph of text appears, Microsoft Word pagebreaks work on fanfiction dot net now. If there's just an empty line, I guess we'll just lose the game or whatever other obnoxious pagebreak I can think of._

_Feeling a little depressed now. _

_Yours always,_

_Sonic the Shapeshifter_


	20. Fist or Fire

**Chapter Twenty: Fist or Fire**

Everything seemed surreal. Like, if she tried hard enough, Violet would just wake up in her room and realize that nothing had happened at all; no trek through a haunted house with Carlee, no two-tailed fox with sky blue eyes staring back into hers so familiarly…and most of all, no kidnapping by some random fat guy with a bushy mustache that ended in bed-surfing over a ledge with a girl-turned-dragon underneath her.

"My back…oh, _god_, my back…" Carlee groaned, massive pearl white body flat on the tiled floor in the large, empty hull of the airship.

Violet wasn't feeling too well herself. She could feel a small lump growing on her head, and wondered if she was getting a concussion, as she had smacked her head hard on Carlee's slate-like scales when they had landed.

"Are you all right, Carlee?" Violet pulled herself up to her knees on Carlee's smooth-scaled stomach and turned over on her back, sliding off the school-bus sized dragon's side and wobbling over to her head.

A slit-pupil eye opened slowly to look at the fifteen year old, adding to the increasingly dreamlike feeling Violet was experiencing. The rainbows in Carlee's iris swirled around the dark slash so prettily…

"Urrgh…I'm fine." Carlee groaned, pulling her head up from the floor. A few tiles steadfastly clung to her rapier-like horns, pierced straight through the middle when she had fallen down onto the floor and unwilling to let go of their aggressor.

Violet swayed slightly on her feet, giggling at the dragon-shaped imprint Carlee left behind as she sat up on the tiled floor. The symbol representing Robotnik's face looked more deformed now than it did in real life, if such a thing were possible. The black lines forming the wide grin were smashed in, along with a nice large crack in the left half of his glasses. Overall the circular outline for the head looked almost like an oval, now. Kind of like an egg.

"Heeheehee…crack the egg, funny mustache, wooo…" Violet murmured, the tiles swimming around in her vision.

"Violet?" Carlee shook herself off, tiles flying off of her horns and spines to smash into the smooth steel walls along the sides of the hull.

Violet giggled in response to her name, eyeing the large dragon furtively.

Carlee did a quick sweep of the room.

Worker robots holding broomsticks and mops and dressed like maids vigorously scrubbed at the floor, seemingly frantic at the newly created dust and shards of tile that now littered the otherwise perfect flooring. Overall the hull was entirely bare, which would have seemed odd to Carlee had she not seen the other bare room earlier whose walls had turned to reveal hidden objects. She assumed this room would be the same way. The only difference (or likeness, perhaps) was that a chair stood on one end of the hull, toward the middle. It was different from the one in the room before, however. It was roundly shaped, with yellow-and-black striped tape around the middle of it and a comfy gray pillow inside. A small set of stairs led up to where it hovered on a circular pedestal.

There were doors leading into the hull all around the room, so Carlee had her choice in picking doors. She took a hard look at each of the identical doors. There was no telling what each door might hold, with the secrets this place held. She felt as though she were moving, although she was standing still, so she could tell that they were on a flying vessel—though she was skeptical about how one this size _could_ fly. The best place to go would be up, but, not yet knowing how to fly and even less about how to take off from the ground (not to mention a lack of stairs to the upper landing she and Violet had fallen from) it would be impossible to get back up there at the moment. The doors, then, were her only option. She had to choose carefully, otherwise…

"WHEEEEEE!" Violet impetuously screamed, running full tilt toward a door on the left with her hands in the air and breaking into Carlee's concentration.

"Vio—what are you doing?" Carlee quickly snaked her tail over to the girl, wrapping it around her middle and picking her up.

"I CAN FLY! LOOK!"

Carlee pulled her tail up to her nose to look Violet frantically in the eyes. "Shh! Shh, Ash is already after me and he might hear us!"

"Whoaaa…" Violet placed her hands on Carlee's tail and leaned forward, staring directly into Carlee's eyes, "Double rainbow all the way across your _face._ That's so intense."

Carlee held the girl back slightly, giving her a weird yet concerned look. "Violet, I think you're hallucinating…"

"So you aren't a dragon?" Violet's gasped, astounded.

"Um, yes, I am a dragon…"

"YAAAY I'M SANE!" Violet's eyes began moving independently of each other, one moving circularly clockwise, and the other counterclockwise.

"Could you…stop doing that? You're seriously giving me the cree—"

The upper half of what had been Violet's door suddenly blasted off its hinges, flying over the railing and smacking Carlee in the back of her head. Carlee bit her tongue and momentarily lost her grip on Violet, her tail uncurling and going rigidly straight at the tip in response to the hit.

"SECOND STAR TO THE RIIIGHT!" Violet fell headfirst toward the floor, grinning wickedly in excitement.

Carlee quickly snatched her up with her tail again and dashed forward, shrinking in size to the size of a horse and running for a door on the far right—second to the right, to be precise. Violet's body swung limply in the dragon's tail like a can on a string attached to a car of a newly married couple.

"I! LIKE! THIS! GAME!" Violet yelled as she flounced around in the grip of Carlee's tail, reaching out to try and grab the floor.

"See how you like THIS!" Ash shouted, charging up a huge fireball and then hurling it quickly at Carlee as she raced to the door. By the time the fireball reached the dragon it had shrunk considerably in size, however, harmlessly popping a few inches away from Violet's eyes.

"OOooOOooh! Fourth of July already?" Violet asked excitedly, her voice wavering like a drunken man's.

Ash cursed, smacking the railing with his fist and then grasping it fully, swinging himself over it and dropping down through the air. As he fell he enveloped his body with fire for protection, and the flames buffered him when he hit the floor with an explosion that shattered a second, this time circular imprint in the tiles. As he landed he rolled, putting out the flames, managing to somersault to a standing position from which he ran after Carlee and Violet, who by this time had already made it through the door.

"You can't run away from me forever, Carlee!" He taunted as he raced through the automatic door in just enough time to see Violet's body swinging around the corner at the end of the hall. Ash grinned wickedly, a dark look coming over his face as he sped down the hall. The look disappeared to be replaced by surprise a moment later as he slid around the corner.

"Wha-AH!" Ash yelped as Carlee slammed her head into his chest, knocking him across the floor into the opposite hall.

"You had a point." She said with a self-satisfied grin, pausing for a moment in the hallway as she glowered down at Ash.

"STRIKE ONE!" Violet cheered, now sitting on Carlee's back with a large foam hand pointing to the air.

"What the—Keep out of my pockets!" Carlee snorted, knocking the foam hand off with a wing.

Ash growled, getting back up.

"Uh oh…" Carlee said as Ash's fingers began smoking.

She turned and continued her dash down the hall as Ash roared and gave chase, his hands wrapped in flames.

**PAGE BREAK!**

"What do you mean, we're lost?" Tails asked, flabbergasted.

"What? I've never been on this airship before in my life. How would I know where to go?" Shadow stated more than asked, indignant.

"But—you—"

"Hmph. You act as if you believed I understood the inner mechanics of Eggman's bases. As if I would have any such knowledge." Shadow crossed his arms as Tails stared at him, little fox-mouth agape, "Now, which way…"

"_MUSH!"_

"_SHUT UP, VIOLET!"_

Shadow's ear twitched, and he looked straight ahead.

"Did you hear something, Shado—" Tails started to ask, but was cut off by an explosion a moment later as Shadow blasted through the wall with the power of his chaos emerald.

When the smoke cleared he saw an unusually large white wolf sitting dazed on the floor in front of him, her bright rainbow eyes confused looking. Suddenly a new face popped up from behind the wolf, a girl who looked somewhat like Carlee but younger with blue eyes…eyes whose pupils were dilated, at the moment. The pupils suddenly shrank. "This isn't the north pole!" Violet shouted, incredulous.

The wolf placed her paw on her snout, her ears flipping down; the canine equivalent of a facepalm.

Shadow turned to Tails. "_This_ is what you were so upset about?" He asked, gesturing to Violet.

"Well at least I didn't come for my pet dog." Tails shot back, staring at Carlee with a confused look.

Carlee scowled at the fox, then perked up her ears and looked back as Ash came flying around the corner behind her.

"DRAGON, WOLF, FLYING FISH—I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU BECOME, YOU'RE NOT GETTING OUT OF HERE!" He screamed at her, too enraged to notice the bipedal hedgehog and fox behind the wolf and girl.

Shadow grabbed Carlee by the fur beneath her neck and swung her (and consequently Violet) behind him. "Take them out the way we came!" He ordered Tails, stepping toward Ash.

Tails nodded, but Carlee objected, crying out, "But what about you?" Much to Tails's amazement.

"I'll be fine, don't worry about me! Just go!" Shadow commanded, taking a battle stance as Ash barreled towards him.

Carlee hesitated for a moment, but then dipped her head in a nod and turned, shifting her body underneath Violet to make sure the girl wouldn't fall off in her confusion. From what she'd already experienced with Shadow she was sure he could hold his own in a fight against Ash, even with his practiced fire powers. As for Carlee and for Violet, it was obvious they hadn't had as much time to hone their skills as Ash apparently had. Staying behind would be pointless, especially with Violet's mental condition after their fall from the fourth floor.

"This way!" Tails directed, darting around a corner with Carlee at his heels.

"HOORAY! FIELD TRIP!" Violet squealed excitedly as she and Carlee turned the corner down the hall, out of Shadow's sight.

Shadow shifted his gaze back to the boy in front of him, his face cold as stone.

Ash had stopped running and now stood a few yards away from Shadow, hands loose at his sides as he huffed. His hair looked somewhat windblown and his chest moved in and out quickly as his lungs took in each deep breath. Perspiration dripped down his face; whether from heat or exertion, it was hard to tell. Fire seemed to dance in his eyes. Any normal person would have flinched back from so fierce a glare…

Shadow was not a normal person.

The hedgehog stood still as a statue, one foot extended behind him and the other ahead in preparation to leap in either direction at a moment's notice should Ash suddenly attack. His hands were clenched in fists with his arms bent slightly at the elbow. His striped quills glowed red, though he could not see them, and his eyes seemed to darken to the color of the ruby red blood he was considering spilling.

The air seemed to chill in the hall as the two sized each other up. Ash suddenly smirked.

"Another demon like the one in the haunted house? I may not have stood a chance against that other one, but now I have powers too. Powers that could burn you to a crisp in mere seconds." Ash said coolly, his words like ice compared to the fire he spoke of.

"Hedgehog, yes…" Shadow said, his voice dark, "Demon, no…" He slowly straightened up, extending his hand and uncurling his index finger to point at Ash, "If you want a true demon…just take a look in the mirror."

Ash gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Shadow still pointed, condemning Ash. A short moment passed, and then Ash's hands exploded in a torrent of fire so white-hot that a wave of heat actually dented the walls of the hall, making them curve outward from the force exerted.

Shadow couldn't hold his balance from the intensity of the blast of hot air and was knocked off his feet, but being the skilled warrior he was he immediately righted himself in midair by executing a back flip and landing in a battle stance another two yards away from Ash. He jumped up and began running on the wall, speeding toward Ash.

The teenager responded by hurtling a column of flame at the hedgehog with one fist, but Shadow sprang from the wall at the last second and shot directly to the opposite one, escaping the second blast by a hair. He triangle jumped from this wall while Ash was still focused on the first and spun into a tight, spiny ball, slamming into Ash with a crushing force of his own. The two went down, crashing into the wall and making another dent. The column of fire went off target as Shadow hit Ash and swung wildly around the hall, leaving a stream of molten metal in its wake.

Shadow bounced back to avoid the blast as Ash's hand swung ahead of the boy's body, landing first on the wall he had sprung upon the teen from and then ducking to the floor as Ash swung his fist toward where the hedgehog had bounced to.

Ash pulled himself up from the floor, column of fire retracting to simply encase his hand in a fireball. "YOU WANT A FIGHT, I'LL GIVE YOU A BRAWL!" He roared, pulling back his fist and running at Shadow.

Shadow stayed in place in front of the wall and dodged at the last second once again, so fast that it seemed to Ash as though the hedgehog had magically disappeared. The boy's fist plunged through the wall, tearing through the metal as if it were cotton candy. Shadow brutally slammed his fist into each of Ash's pressure points from behind and Ash felt for a moment as if his mind had exploded from the amount of pain the blows caused. The fire went out not only from his hands, but in his eyes as well.

With a harsh intake of breath Ash sank to his knees, his hand still trapped in the rapidly cooling metal of the wall. Shadow took Ash's free arm and twisted it behind the boy's back, pressing in on it hard with his elbow as Ash gasped in added pain. Shadow leaned close in to Ash, blade-sharp incisors dangerously close to the boy's ear.

"_If you value your life…_" He whispered darkly, but quietly, "_Do not follow us…_"

Then, as quickly as he had disappeared before, he was gone again, leaving nothing but a dark flash of cold wind blowing through the hall in his wake.

Ash collapsed on the floor, shuddering with each gasp of breath he took. The lights flickered in the smashed and scorched hallway, then went out.

**Pagebreak**

Tails burst through the door to the deck with Carlee close behind, thankful that he had remembered the way out. "Okay, there's the plane!" He exclaimed to the wolf, running up to it and turning back to her. "All right, just—"

"Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting STARS?" Violet interjected excitedly, seemingly enthralled with the blue-and-yellow plane.

"I don't have any steps or anything since I can just climb up," Tails continued, ignoring Violet, "So just let Violet down and I'll lift you up myse—"

Carlee slid out from underneath Violet and transformed back into a human before Tails's awestruck eyes before he could finish the sentence. She bent down and tapped the wide-eyed fox lightly on the nose.

"I am _not_ Shadow's pet." She informed him while Tails stared, jaw-dropped.

"Preeeeeeeeeeeeeetty clouds…" Violet observed, leaning dangerously far over the edge of the deck of the Egg Carrier.

"VIOLET! GET AWAY FROM THERE BEFORE YOU KILL YOURSELF!" Carlee shrieked, dashing over to the younger girl in a frenzy.

"B-but that's not logical, you can't just become an entirely different species in the space of a few seconds and become bigger or smaller at will—that doesn't fit with the law of conservation of mass!" Tails babbled to himself, trying to make sense of what he had just seen.

As Carlee frantically tried to pull Violet back from the ledge, Shadow suddenly appeared, swiftly running through the middle door leading into the airship and slowing to a stop in front of Tails.

"Let's go." He said bluntly.

Tails leaned over and looked beyond Shadow to the door. "Is he…"

"He will not bother us again." Another blunt statement, this time with a dark undertone.

Tails took a cautious sniff but could not smell blood. He figured that was a good sign. "Okay. The girls are over there…" Tails gestured behind him as Violet suddenly spun around and tackled Carlee to the ground in a hug, making the other girl yelp. "Did you know that Carlee can—"

"Yes." Shadow walked past Tails, signaling that the conversation was over.

Tails bit his lower lip for a moment, feeling brushed off. He shook it off a moment later. Shadow was not the hedgehog Sonic was. Such abrupt conversations were to be expected. It was foolish to believe otherwise. Still…

Shadow strode over to Carlee and Violet, the latter of which now pinning the former to the ground and proclaiming that she simply could not wait to be king—in song form. The hedgehog picked up the smaller girl and tucked her unceremoniously under his arm, walking over to the Tornado and strapping her into the seat behind the pilot's seat. She was thrilled. "I LOVE ROLLER COASTERS!"

Carlee facepalmed, still lying on the ground where she had been tackled.

"What _happened_ to you?" Tails asked Violet as he climbed into the pilot's seat and strapped himself in, looking back at Violet with a concerned expression.

"My fault." Carlee said as Shadow pulled her up with an gentle hand, "I think it happened when we fell from the third floor of the airship to the first. I was a dragon so I flipped over to keep her from hitting the floor to protect her, but I guess she still managed to hit her head on something." The large lump on Violet's head was pretty well visible by this point, though at first glance it simply looked like a clump of unruly hair was sticking up on the side of her head. "She'll be back to normal in a day, two tops, I'm sure."

Tails nodded. "I see. I'll get her an icepack when we get back to my workshop."

"Do me a favor and turn into something small." Shadow said suddenly to Carlee.

"Why?" She asked.

"There aren't any more seats and I'm not risking you falling off the plane. You'll have to fit in the second seat with Violet and keep her distracted so she won't start playing 'Guess Who' with Tails midflight." Shadow said, watching as Violet began picking at the bangs on Tails's forehead with a pair of chopsticks. To Tails's credit, he ignored the poking and prodding and instead worked on setting up the plane for takeoff.

"Got it." Carlee climbed up onto the plane and transformed into a floppy eared bunny, hopping into Violet's lap and lying across her legs.

The fifteen year old squealed with excitement and immediately set about picking up Carlee's floppy ears with the chopsticks.

"All set?" Tails asked as Shadow leapt up upon the tail of the plane and plastered himself to the metal.

"Let's go."

"All right! To the sky!" Tails exclaimed as the Tornado began rolling down the runway.

The landing gear retracted as they rose into the air, and then they took off. As they flew away, an excited cry of "_To the moooon!_" echoed across the sea.

_Author's Notes:_

_I'd like to take the time to point out a couple of geniuses in my life._

_Genius Number 1: MaliceArchangela. She is so smart. Why didn't I just think of using the word Pagebreak as a Pagebreak placed strategically in the center of the page? *slaps own forehead*_

_Genius Number 2: Dabestgamer. He just uploads the chapters of his fantastic pokemon/yugioh crossover story "In Between" as he finishes them and doesn't set a specific date for himself to update by. Since my writing time has been so limited due to the school year, I'm gonna just do this too—update whenever I finish a chapter. I'll still try to finish the chapters weekly or biweekly so I don't leave you guys hanging for too long though, all right?_

_Lastly, I was very happy to get so many reviews in response to the last chapter. A few of you even messaged me to tell me how much you were enjoying the story and why you enjoy it—which I appreciate much more than you know! I want all of you who are reading and reviewing to know that even if I don't always respond to your reviews, I definitely read them, and it makes me feel happy that my story is actually getting out to so many people. Thanks to all of your enthusiasm I was inspired to make this chapter jam-packed with action and fun! So I hope you enjoyed this!_

_It's also worth noting that from what I remember of the original chapter, Ash was the comic relief before. He slammed into a wall during a chase. Carlee did go dragon, but it was in response to a brain scan (an idea which now seems stupid to me so I changed it to an adrenaline rush of fear in this rewrite) and Violet never flooded her bedroom or went crazy—because she and Carlee never went hurtling over a third floor railing and thus Violet never bumped her head. There was also no epic fight scene between Ash and Shadow resulting in a thinly veiled death threat :D See how you guys inspire me? I made the daring escape not suck. One more thing. In the original Carlee turned into a horse, but I decided a horse's hooves would slip on the floor and changed her to a wolf instead. Padded feet work well on slick floors, and I dunno, I just felt like turning her into a wolf. Heheh._

_Please leave more reviews! I put a lot of work into this one for ya! =D The more reviews I get, the more I feel my work isn't going to waste, and the better the story becomes as you are my inspiration : ) So keep 'em comin!_

_Also! I reworked chapter one, added a prologue in to see if I could grab some more readers : ) So be sure to go back and check it out. I also fixed a mistake in chapter 3, with Kai's age. I realized I messed up when I gave him that age because of a time paradox. Why does this matter? All will be revealed in time. Lastly I bolded and underlined every title and changed all the pagebreaks to the bolded word Pagebreak. Now all is right in the world!_


	21. Inconclusive Conclusions

**Chapter Twenty point Five: Dimensional Fluctuations**

Itachi was feeling tired, but couldn't sleep. Everyone knew that the last day of the year had the thinnest barrier between the universes. A wrong turn could cause an extreme mix-up.

That is, if he even believed in that stuff.

The Uchiha might be a ninja, but he only believed in stuff that he could have proven to him. Deidara had mouths on his hands…he could see it, so he believed it. Sasori turned himself into a puppet. Again, no big deal.

But another universe?

Please.

He wasn't a little kid that needed fairytales to get to sleep. That was Tobi's job. Deidara was still launching fireworks outside…and yelling as he did so. Itachi put his pillow over his head to attempt to muffle the noise…just as a particularly loud firework sounded overhead. The weasel groaned loudly as he turned over in his bed before giving up and getting up. It was just too noisy, even he couldn't ignore the blond as he deserved. When he went down to the kitchen, he was surprised to see his next-door neighbor still here as she took some hot brownies from the oven.

"Hey, Itachi," she smiled at him, "How are you?"

"Hn."

"Well, he should be stopping soon enough. I think he's running out of stuff to explode."

"Hn?"

"Yes, I'm sure," she gestured at the brownies, "You hungry? They're nice and hot."

"Hn."

"Okay, here you go!"

She sliced a nice sized gooey brownie, plopped it on a plate and handed in over to the Akatsuki member, who tentatively took a bite.

His eyes widened when he realized that it was actually good.

"Should I take your surprise as an insult or a compliment?" He looked back at her to see an amused look on her face.

"Hn."

He looked over her shoulder, then his eyes widened for a different reason. Moving quickly, he dropped the brownie on the table, grabbed hold of the startled teen, wheeled himself around so that his back was between that…thing and Cin…and it hit…It felt ticklish…that is, if he was, and warm, like hot chocolate…if he actually drank it.

And then he was falling.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

"Sh-Shadow?" Carlee stared wide-eyed at the tall, dark-haired man dressed in a black and red cape, strange crimson designs covering the long black trench coat. The collar of said coat covered the man's mouth and his red eyes glared imperiously down at the shocked shapeshifter.

"Hn?" The man only then seemed to notice the girl lying on the ground below him. He closed his eyes, made a couple of handsigns and grunted, "Release."

Nothing happened.

When he opened his eyes again, he was astonished to see the scene just as it was.

"Itachi, what's going on?" a girl with golden brown hair and warm amber eyes asked from behind him.

"That's what I'd like to know!" Carlee spoke up again, standing up and moving back a few paces from the two unknown people who now stood before her.

A flash of light had awoken the girl to find that Shadow and Tails were gone…and in their places were these oddly dressed people.

"Oddly dressed? What about your tattered, strange looking attire?" Itachi suddenly asked, startling Carlee.

"Y-you read my mind?"

"Of course he did; he _claims_ he can break the fourth wall," Cin said with an air of indifference, "He also claims there are fangirls stalking his every move. I'm almost inclined to believe him at times, I must admit."

"The what?"

Itachi turned to Cin. "I do not think she understands." He then faced the computer screen directly. "MALICEARCHANGELA, STOP NARRATING AND GET ME OUT OF HERE THIS INSTANT!"

_What the frick? You can hear me?_

"Of course I can! Wait a second…you are not MaliceArchangela…in fact…you sound kinda boyish…"

_Shut up! I'll have you know I'm female, dangit! And what are you even doing here, this is Of Shapeshifters and Violets, not Quiet on the Golf Course._

"The ceiling…IT'S TALKING TO ME!"

Cin slapped her forehead as Carlee gaped at the roof of the cave.

Itachi rolled his eyes, "It is simply the voice of the author...do you not realize that we are in the middle of a story?" he turned his attention upwards again, "Whoever you are, you had better fix this or you will face my Amaterasu!"

_Amaterasu? I LOVED THAT GAME! nananananana nanananananana Okami!_

"Great, I am stuck here in a stupid fanfic with a stupid clueless girl and a stupid clueless author writing about me." Itachi grumbled. "At least Malice was not insane…"

_Insane, no. Crazy, yes. Indeed, there is a difference. For you see, the velocity at which an insane person moves is perpendicularly related to their present state of mind, whereas a crazy person simply is prone to random outbursts at equally random times, possibly as a result of Attention Deficit Disorder or even at times Tourettes, while the latter is highly unlikely as coprolalia affects only around ten percent of the tourette's-affected population—_

"Oh, wonderful, an INTELLIGENT clueless author. That is even worse."

_You started it._

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

_Na na na na na, you can't get me outside the screeeeeeeeeeeeen…_

Itachi proceeded to claw at the walls of the cave, aggravated beyond measure.

"What have you done with Shadow?" Carlee growled at Cin, crouching down on all fours like a track runner in front of Violet.

"Who is this Shadow guy?" Cin asked Itachi. Itachi simply shrugged. "I don't know who you're talking about, blondie, but if you get in our way we're going to have to—Wait what are you—Whoa!"

Before the shocked ninjas eyes, the girl had transformed into a massive white tiger. She growled threateningly at Cin and Itachi, taking a step forward with her claws digging into the dirt of the cave like spades.

"ITAAACHI!" Cin yelped.

"My powers…they do not seem to work in this dimension. Author, stop this nonsense immediately."

_I thought you said I was 'clueless.'_

"What do you want…an apology?"

_It was a very hurtful comment D:_

Itachi facepalmed. Carlee took another step forward, baring her saber-like teeth at the two ninjas and growling again. "Bring...him…back…"

"AUTHOR!"

_Apologize._

"NEVER!"

—_Gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and—_

"NOOO! NOT THAT SONG! ANYTHING BUT THAT STUPID SONG!"

_**Wait what's going on here?**_

_Oh, hi Shelby. What're you doing here?_

_**Meh, I'm bored. Want to roleplay?**_

_Well, I was kind of in the middle of—_

"Excuse me!" Cin cried, backed up against a wall with Itachi as Carlee crept forward. "A little help here?"

_Oh, right._

Carlee suddenly turned into a tiger cub. "Mrow?"

_Anyway Shelby as I was saying—HEY! PUT HER DOWN RIGHT NOW ITACHI!_

Itachi held the little cub by the scruff and extracted a knife from his sleeve. "You hold no jurisdiction over me, foolish author. As for this…thing…I am going to kill it before it kills one of us."

_LIKE HECK YOU ARE!_

Carlee suddenly turned into a dragon and sat upon the ninja. "I don't understand—my powers, they're out of control!"

"Da—"

_ng_

"—it—hn?"

_Cuss denied._

"Why you little—"

"Itachi, shh. I don't think it's a good idea to upset this author. I think we should just stay calm until we figure out what's going on around—Whoa!"

The ground began shaking.

"H-h-e-y q-qu-it th-a-at au-th-h-o-r!"

_I-I-I'm n-n-ot-t d-d-d-oi-n-g th-i-s-s-s_

"Wh-a-a-t's ha-pp-pp-e-nn-ing?" Carlee yelped as the cave began pushing inward and outward upon itself like a deflating balloon.

"F-f-f-r-en-ch t-t-t-oas-t…" Violet mumbled in her sleep as the ground beneath her shook.

"W-W-W-WH-A-T-T?" The other three exlaimed.

_I d-d-d-on't-t kn-n-o-w ei-th-e-r-r-r _

Suddenly everything went white

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

"What…the…heck…is on top of…me…"

"Shadow?" Carlee got up, changing to human form, and looked down to see Shadow lying on his face on the floor of the cave.

"Urf…" Was all he said in response.

"What...the heck just happened…?" Tails stood flattened against the wall where Cin was standing just moments before.

"Where did you two go? I was freaking out, these two people were here and I almost got knifed!"

"WHAT? WHO DID IT? I'LL KILL HIM!" Shadow leapt to his feet in a battle stance, eyes flashing with murderous fire.

"We woke up and all of a sudden there were humans everywhere, and they were all wearing these weird cloaks." Tails exclaimed.

_It was strange for me too. I'm glad you two are back, though._

"Who said that?" Shadow snapped.

_Unfortunately this whole charade has absolutely nothing to do with Of Shapeshifters and Violets, and therefore I am going to have to erase your memories of this strange event._

"What?" Tails exclaimed.

_Just relax, all of you. It won't hurt a bit. We're going to go back in time a little bit, and it'll be like none of this ever happened…_

"Wait! But what abou

**Chapter Twenty One: Inconclusive Conclusions**

_((Quick Author's Note: This is not the end of __**Of Shapeshifters and Violets**__. Do not be alarmed. There is much more to come! MUUUUCH more.))_

Tails covered the entrance to the cave with the mossy vines that hung from the large tree just outside. Only a few, spider-web thin tendrils of yellow light slipped through the leaves of the vines, leaving the cave area dark as dusk.

Turning from the entrance, the little fox walked to the center of the cave and kneeled on the floor, taking a battery-powered lantern out of his knapsack and turning it on. He placed it in the middle of the soft dirt floor, sitting back and pulling himself to an Indian-style position.

The lantern glowed softly, casting a warm yellow-orange glow about the cave as shadows danced on the walls.

Violet was lying off to one side, by the wall, asleep. On the ride over the ocean in the tornado, her random outbursts had given way to silence, and she had remained in her dream-world ever since.

Upon landing on the palm-tree lined airstrip that led into his workshop home, Tails had immediately packed four bags full of food, socks, batteries, and other necessary items and set off with Violet, Shadow, and Carlee down the mountainside to the secret, secluded cave that was hidden right nearby. Save for him, no one knew of the secret cave—a place he'd discovered while exploring a few years before. Even Sonic did not know about this spot.

Tails felt a little bad, now, that he hadn't told his blue buddy about the cave…mainly because his best friend's rival was now sitting across from him, staring at Tails with blood red eyes.

At first, Shadow had wanted to leave immediately with Carlee upon landing, but the teenager wouldn't hear of it. Now that she had found Violet, Carlee was reluctant (more like _loath_) to leave her friend behind.

Tails didn't like the idea either. Since the two girls had apparently come the same other world, he thought it best they stay together—then together they could solve the mystery of how it happened in the first place.

Shadow grudgingly agreed, but pointed out that it would be foolish to remain in a house that Eggman had attacked before as that would be where the doctor would come looking first for the two girls.

The hedgehog had a point.

Thus they traversed the small mountain to rest where they were now.

"Are you sure that we are far enough away from your workshop to escape notice if Eggman and that jerk kid come looking?" Shadow asked Tails, the light from the lantern glinting in his eyes.

"For sure," Tails replied, "No one knows about this cave, save for me. The only problem is that we can't stay down here forever. We only have enough food and supplies for about three days."

"Hmmm…" Shadow's ears lowered flat against his head as he thought.

"Well there has to be somewhere we can go." Carlee said, pulling her knees up to rest her arms on them as she sat, "So far I've only met five people on this planet who I didn't already know. But I heard the name of a person who I haven't met yet. Robot Rick mentioned someone called Sonic, I think he's a hedgehog. Maybe we should try to find—"

Shadow growled in annoyance. Carlee looked at him in confusion. "What?" She asked.

"Sonic is indeed a hedgehog—he's my best buddy, too!" Tails spoke up, tails swishing, "He's fought Eggman several times—"

"Egg-who?" Carlee interrupted, shooting a questioning gaze to Tails.

"Dr. Robotnik's nickname…" Shadow explained, catching the attention of the girl-and-fox again, "More of a cruel joke about his corpulence than a friendly nickname like Miles over there has."

"Don't call me that!" Tails snapped at the hedgehog.

Shadow turned his steely gaze upon Tails, quailing the fox. "I'll call you what I feel like calling you, two-tail."

"Hey, hey, cut it out, both of you." Carlee cut in as Tails started to say something in angry response, "We need to get a plan of action together and figure out what our next move is—not to mention figure out why the lord of lard is after us."

"Well it's obvious why he's after _you_," Tails said, rolling his eyes, "You can defy the laws of physics and transform your molecular structure to mold yourself into the form of any living thing you select."

"English, please." Shadow said in a low voice.

"As for that one male with the pyrokinetic powers, that is equally as palpable." Tails continued, deliberately ignoring Shadow's request, "The only thing that remains indistinct is exactly why he's after Violet. Save for the whole psychosis incident, she's normal."

"Ah, not any more…" Carlee broke in, tapping her index fingers together.

"Huh?" Tails looked at Carlee in confusion.

"Violet can kind of make water appear out of nowhere, now." Carlee stole a glance at the peacefully sleeping fifteen year old on the other side of the cave.

"Something isn't right…" Shadow mused, eyebrows knitting together as he stared thoughtfully into the fire.

"What do you mea—" Tails started, but abruptly stopped, ears twitching as a small moan sounded from the back of the cave.

The three looked back to see Violet sit up and stretch. The girl yawned, politely covering her mouth, and rubbed her head with a groan. She opened her eyes and blinked at the darkness, looking over to see Shadow, Carlee, and Tails by the fire.

"Whoa…when did we get here? What happened to the…the…"

"Airship?" Carlee supplied, raising an eyebrow, "We escaped. Remember? I turned dragon and we bedsurfed over the ledge—"

"You did WHAT?" Shadow interjected, appalled at the idea.

"And then you kinda went all loopy and…oh no…" Carlee smacked her forehead.

"What?" Tails asked.

"She doesn't remember anything." Carlee replied with a groan.

"Remember what?" Violet asked, walking over on her knees to kneel by Carlee and Tails by the fire.

"It's not important." Shadow said.

"No, seriously! Remember what?" Violet asked insistently.

**Pagebreak**

A strange, high pitched whirring sound awakened Ash. Groggily, the boy slowly raised his head to see a round saw blade shredding through the wall where his hand was trapped in the metal.

"Don't. Move." A familiar voice whispered in his ear.

"Dr. Robotnik?" Ash mumbled in question. His eyes snapped fully open. "But your arm—"

"Shh…hush now. You must keep still until I can get the sawblade through the metal and free your hand from it. Unless you don't want that hand any more." The man quietly warned.

Ash nodded slightly and kept still. The saw cut a circle into the wall and then stopped, retracting to rest atop the body of a small robot. Ash saw Robotnik's large, white-gloved hand grasp his wrist.

"Pull." The man said softly.

Ash obeyed the command. After a moment the metal clump surrounding his fist was free from the wall. Ash let it drop like a lead weight to the floor after Robotnik let go.

"Can you use your powers at all?" Dr. Robotnik inquired, standing to Ash's side in the dilapidated hallway.

Ash tried, envisioning the fire he'd had burning in his hands in the fight before. Nothing appeared. Ash looked up at Robotnik, the large man blocking out what remained of the flickering lights at the end of the hall. "No…I can't."

"Very interesting…" Robotnik mumbled, "He must have hit your pressure points. That stopped the flow of energy. It may be another hour or so until you are able to conjure fire again."

"An hour?" Ash groaned.

"We don't want to accidentally slice off a finger just to get it out, now. When you're able to use your flame abilities again you can melt it off again. Until then I am going to leave your hand encased in the metal." Robotnik continued, ignoring Ash, "We are going to have to improve your fighting skills for the next time you come up against that hedgehog."

"Wait…how did you know about…"

"There are security cameras in every hallway. I reviewed the tapes when I had recovered from my fall, so that I could find where you went. I am dissappointed that you were unable to stop Carlee and Violet from escaping."

Ash bowed his head, then looked sharply back up at Robotnik again. "It won't happen again. Next time I'll—"

"Yes, I know. You will do your best to make sure they do not get away next time. You will not fail me again."

Ash gave Robotnik's arm a long glance. It seemed perfectly fine. Had he only imagined that it looked broken before?

"Come now. We have work to do. We must track them all down before they get too far." Robotnik turned from Ash and set off down the hall, the little saw-bot zooming along on caterpillar treads after him.

_Author's Notes:_

_Well, it sure has been a while since I last updated. In fact, it hasn't been since last ye-*bricked*_

_LOL Hello again, my faithful reviewers. Were you confused by the presence of ninjas in my fanfic? Well, that was all MaliceArchangela's idea, actually ;D We thought it'd be fun to do a swap-a-roo chapter, seeing as it's New Year's Day and all. Hopefully you didn't immediately switch off and go to another site when you saw Naruto characters in the beginning (Noooo! Don't leave! I LOVE YOUUU *bricked again*)_

_If you want to see my introduction to the flipped chapter, and how Shadow and Tails reacted to being dropped in the crazy world of ninjas, check out MaliceArchangela's story "Quiet on the Golf Course" and go to chapter seventy seven. Malice, is that right?_


	22. Pack Your Bags

**Chapter Twenty Two: Pack Your Bags**

"Five more minutes…" Violet grumbled in her slumber as she was nudged in the side.

"Time is not on our side." An unfamiliarly low voice replied.

Violet rolled onto her back and opened her eyes to see two red ones glaring at her from the darkness. With a yelp she jerked awake and sat up, scrambling away from the hedgehog to whom the eyes belonged, who slightly cocked his head to the side in question.

"Are you all right?" He asked.

Violet stared up at him as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, remembering in a flash where she was. Light shone in through the heavy vines over the cavern's entrance, harsh sunrays softened by a blanket of green. Shadows danced on the walls, and very faintly, she could hear some birds chirping outside.

The hedgehog—A friend of Carlee's, Violet remembered from their conversation the previous night—stood in front of this entrance, light streaming around him and enveloping his silhouette in a yellow-green glow.

His bright red eyes stared intently down upon Violet as he waited for her answer.

"O-oh." Violet rubbed her forehead, realizing that he was waiting for a response, "Yeah, I'm fine, just got startled is all, I forgot where I was…" She babbled and then abruptly shut up, feeling a little nervous under the hedgehog's unyielding gaze.

The hedgehog nodded, then turned to face the glowing entrance. "Carlee and Tails are waiting outside. We have to get moving."

"Moving? Where?" Violet scrambled to her feet and brushed the dust off of her jeans.

"We can't stay here. Tails's workshop is the first place Robotnik will think to look for us, and I don't trust him not to search the surrounding area as well." He walked toward the light, "Come out when you are ready. We're heading out now."

"Wait!" Violet called after him.

The hedgehog paused. "What?" He inquired, flicking an ear back toward Violet but not turning to face her.

"What is your name again?" Violet faltered, feeling embarrassed that she couldn't remember.

"I am Shadow." He responded, not seeming to take any offense at the question, and then walked through the vines into the light. Yellow light poured in through the opening and was then filtered again as the vines closed behind him.

Violet looked around, but didn't see anything she thought she could use in the cave. She picked up her chopsticks (which, miraculously, had not been broken in the craziness that Carlee had told her they'd gone through…Violet suspected the elder girl had made most of that story up to tease her) which she had taken out of her pocket the night before and placed on a flat stone nearby, and replaced them in her jeans pocket. Sometime in the journey they might prove useful, she figured. Not to mention, they were the only things of value she had with her in the cave. After taking one swift look around, she quickly walked over to the vines and parted them, walking out of the cave.

She blinked and squinted as her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the outside world. When her vision cleared she saw Tails and Shadow standing next to a small Palamino Clydesdale in front of the steep mountain leading up to the workshop.

"About time you woke up, sleepyhead!" The horse spoke up, jolting Violet.

"R-right…shapeshifting…I forgot…" Violet said sheepishly, walking over to the trio.

"You sure you're feeling all right, Vi?" Carlee tossed her mane, "Stupid overgrown bangs in my eyes…" She muttered in annoyance.

"I'm fine, really. It's just so much to take in all at once…" Violet said, looking around the area.

Everything seemed so bright and cheery with the sun out, a few white clouds drifting overhead. It felt so natural…which made her situation feel all the more surreal.

"That was a pretty large lump on your head though…" Carlee persisted, looking over Violet carefully from head to toe.

"I'm fine, the swelling is down, it'll be gone in another day or two I'm sure. Don't worry about it so much." Violet rubbed her neck with a hand, smiling sheepishly.

"If you're sure. But if you start feeling dizzy you just tell me and we'll stop for a while, okay?"

"Of course, we cannot stop what we have not yet started." Shadow spoke up from Carlee's side.

The Clydesdale's eyes bulged slightly as the hedgehog placed another bundle on her back, along with four backpacks hanging over her sides. "Don't we have enough food already?" She snapped slightly as Tails approached with another small pack.

"Oh, this one isn't for you to carry," Tails said quickly, slipping the backpack over his shoulders, "I've got this one."

"And that was the last one. We had to make sure to bring as many supplies as possible; we don't know how much we'll have available to us where we're going." Shadow explained, "I'd carry a bag myself as I said, but my spines would shred right through the material."

"Yeah, yeah." Carlee rolled her eyes.

Violet giggled at her friend's expression, then looked back at Shadow. "Where _are_ we heading?" She asked as the hedgehog started to walk over to Tails.

"We are going to Station Square to meet…an old friend of mine." Shadow said, walking past Tails and continuing along the side of the mountain.

"Who?"

"Her name is Rouge the Bat." Tails said, grinning at Violet and bopping her leg with a tail as he dashed past her to catch up to Shadow.

"A bat?"

"Geeze, Vi, is this twenty questions or something?" Carlee joked, headbutting the younger girl in the back and trotting forward with a chuckle.

"Hey, hey!" Violet protested as Carlee pushed her ahead, "I'm going!"

"Then come on!" Carlee laughed, running around Violet and up ahead.

"Hey, wait up!"

"Catch up!"

Violet laughed and raced after Carlee, catching up to Shadow and Tails as they continued on.

**Pagebreak**

Ash flexed his fingers, examining them with a hard glare. The metal easily dripped off his fingers after his strength returned, fire eating through it and turning it to liquid goo—literally putty in his palm. It had taken a full_ two _hours for his fire-spawning ability to return, not one as Dr. Robotnik had hypothesized. The wait had been excruciating.

Already Ash was used to his new powers. It felt as though the flames were an extension of himself—he couldn't help noticing the similarities between his name and his given power, almost like a cosmic joke…or destiny…

Being suddenly robbed of them felt like a terrible breach of his soul.

"_If you want a true demon…" _Images of the black hedgehog darted across his mind's eye as Ash relived the fight in his mind, "_Just take a look in the mirror…_"

Ash punched the wall again, leaning back against the headboard of the cot. "I'm not the demon! He is!" He growled angrily, pulling his fist out of the now-dented wall. A myriad of knuckle-imprints decorated the wall of his bedside.

Who was that hedgehog, anyway? How did he know _just_ where to hit to cause Ash's flames to stop functioning? And more importantly…what was his connection to Carlee?

It was clear that the hedgehog knew her—he stepped up to keep Ash from getting near the girl, after all—but why?

He vaguely remembered seeing the hedgehog when he had tranquilized Carlee and used his fire powers to propel himself up onto Dr. Robotnik's airship…but they were at least five hundred miles out on the ocean by that time…who would chase someone so far…unless they loved them?

Ash's pillow suddenly ignited. Quickly he picked it up and smacked it repeatedly against the wall to put out the flames, cursing. The white pillow now resembled a lightly charred marshmallow. With a furious growl he shoved it back in its place on the bed, swinging his legs up upon the cot and wrapping his arms around his knees.

"Stupid demon ninja hedgehog thing…" He muttered through clenched teeth, "If he thinks he can steal her away from me he'd better think again!"

A beep resounded in this room and he glanced up at the intercom stationed in the ceiling. Robotnik's voice rang out a moment later, metallic and hollow sounding.

"Ash, report to the hull. We have arrived."

_Author's Notes:_

_Did you miss me? :D *shot*_

_Looks like Ash is taking Shadow's actions as affection rather than a "death-to-all-who-oppose-me" threat. And meanwhile Shadow is taking the group off to Station Square! But wasn't that place abandoned long ago to the meanest mobians around? (Chapter Five: The First Arrival)_

_You miiight want to reread some of the earlier chapters, or at least that one, for a little back-info for the coming chapter. And you also might want to review this one. Y'know. So I feel motivated to write more of this Lol._

_Please leave a review to tell me what you think of the story as a whole so far, by the way, what you like, what you don't like, is there anything you'd like to see happen in the future (No, I will not include your fancharacters in this if you have any, sorry—I'm trying to stick to the characters I have that are necessary for the plot, and no other fancharacters than these so that it seems more like Sonic fanfic and not a Fan-0f-Sonic fanfic), and what you love and hate about the characters? _

_I need this information to make your reading experience all the more pleasurable! Sorry I haven't updated for so long but I got very involved in schoolwork and a bout of depression and a lot of other insane stuff, I will try to make the updates be regular again in the future. Unless you don't review. Then I may take a little longer. Can't help it. What's the incentive to write if my words don't gain any feedback, after all?_


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